Thursday, 20 November 2025

Today was one of those days when I thought I had planned an easy day, the aim was to just get from Takamatsu to Hiroshima but the twist was to pick one of the services that utilise the 500 series train sets. My first experience of the Shinkansen was in 2006 between Osaka and Hiroshima on a 500 series (Nozumi service) and with the 500 series due to retire in 2027 I wanted to revisit the journey while I still could. There aren’t many services using the 500. JR West cut them in half (down from 16 cars to 8) when they were taken out of Nozumi service in favour of the N700 and they only run as the all stops Kodama service from Okayama to Hakata and return. N700s do most of the runs but the timetable shows the half dozen services that use a 500. JR West runs a “Hello Kitty” themed train once a day that is also a 500 and it runs from Osaka to Hakata.

My original plan was to take a limited express Marine Liner from Takamatsu to Okayama in time to photograph the “Hello Kitty” coming through, it has to stay in Okayama station for 5 minutes to let a Nozumi pass and then catch the next 500 an hour later. After a long internal debate I decided to book the “Hello Kitty” train.

Earlier this week I checked the timetable and the “Hello Kitty” web site and it’s not running. This week is its maintenance period so I would get a standard N700 instead. Well that wasn’t part of my plan so I looked to change it. It seemed that my original train choice had stopped being a 500 earlier in the month too. I found one that appeared to be running at 4:50pm and changed my booking to it. The confirmation said it was a 500 so it seemed safe but now the question was what to do before 4:50pm. Should I stay in Takamatsu, move to Okayama (with my weekender(ish) bag and backpack), or even somewhere in between. It also meant that my Shinkansen journey would be mostly in the dark and I’d probably get to my hotel at 6:30pm.

Okayama Korakuen Garden claims to be one of the 3 great gardens of Japan and has 3 stars in the Michelin Guide so I thought I would travel to Okayama, spend some time in the garden and then catch my Shinkansen so I booked a late morning train out of Takamatsu.

In the morning I already had a supermarket smoothie and a yoghurt but I supplemented that at a bakery with a sesame, bacon & potato bread thing, a dark cherry danish and coffee flavored “milk for bread” (iced coffee to Australians).

The bakeries have been very good. Some weird stuff but then there is this, and the bacon & potato thing was still warm from the oven.

The marine liner train is a weird beast. It has a single double decker car, with green class on top and reserved on the bottom and another 3 (I think) single decked cars. There are four green seats right behind the driver so they can see out the driver’s windows as well as the side windows. Seems like a great idea, except on Takamatsu to Okayama it’s at the back, and the seats are turned to face forward. I booked it anyway.

In the right hand side you can see the Seto Ohashi Bridge that island hops across the Seto Inland Sea. The train uses the lower deck, of course.

I arrived in Okayama and started to walk to the garden, and found yet another shrine. I’d like to know if there is a count of them as they seem nearly as popular as kombinis.

I reach the garden and pay my entrance fee and go in and the first thing that strikes me is a massive lawn with parasols on it. This is certainly not like Ritsurin Garden.

Anyway I start my exploration around the outside of the giant lawns.

I found some bamboo. Doesn’t make up for missing the bamboo forests in Osaka but it’s something different.

There was a big lake in the middle too.

Found a small rapids

And a rice field

This looked interesting but I don’t know what problem it is solving.

The field of parasols

That’s Okayama castle in the background but it’s not in the park. My circuit complete I felt disappointed. The garden was set up to be open at night as there were ground lights potentially illuminating stuff everywhere. There was a “teahouse” but with wooden benches outside a shop selling matcha, and there was small patches of things, cherry trees, ume trees, tea bushes, the bamboo. It lacked any style and I can’t fathom how it is one of the great gardens.

I still had 2 hours before my train so I went looking for some lunch and found another burger place. These burgers are tasty but messy.

Back to the station and a quick visit to Bic Camera because it appeared in the underground passage towards the station and I still had time to kill.

Sanyo Shinkansen ticket system, while still JR West, is different to Hokuriku Shinkansen. This time I can associate my ticket to my IC card (mobile Suica) and use it to enter the Shinkansen gates. Unlike the JR East system that also uses IC cards the JR West one has the gate print you a seat information card which you collect at the end of the gate.

So I get to the platform, watch a few Nozomis and Sakuras pass through the station and then the 500 arrives, from the “wrong” direction. It starts in Okayama but I was still expecting it to pull into the station as if it had come from Osaka but no it nearly caught me off guard.

Not the boxy shape of the 700 derivatives and no duck bill, it’s a kingfisher. No green car on this service, just reserved and unreserved.

An uneventful journey to Hiroshima with a number of stops where a Nozumi blasted pass at 300km/h making the 500 shake. The 500 does about 220km/h between stopping.

I’m staying at the Crowne Plaza and it’s not next to the station so I had a choice, walk, bus or tram. I picked tram and new city watch what the locals do and copy them. They were queuing at all the doors so pick a queue (which happened to be the driver’s door since I had just photographed the front of the modern tram). Enter tram and look for IC card device and there isn’t one, well there isn’t one I’ve become familiar with. Tap the thing that looks like it might accept an IC card and it pops up a credit card from my iPhone’s wallet. Am I in another city that doesn’t do IC cards on non trains? Nope, they just have a flat rate so they don’t tap on, only off and they have a special scanner for that.

Japan some consistency would be really nice.

Anyway get to the stop I want and tap off and nope that’s not working, driver indicates to try again, so I do and still no dice. He’s telling me to do something in Japanese which isn’t helpful but I place the phone on the scanner again and Suica and scanner are happy. The Suica log says there were two reads and a payment so who knows.

Check in. Room on club floor, bigger, much bigger than last night, and head to the lounge for a snack and beverage. From the window I can see that the street is lit up with displays so off to get my camera and explore for a bit.

While I was out I decided I might as well check out the Peace Park at night.

And that’s the day done.