3rd, Jan. Check out from the hotel early in the morning, and after dropping off our extra luggages, take only one suitcase and prepare to go to Hakodate.
JR Pass cannot be used to ride the Tokyo subway, so Suica is used to deduct the money directly. Suica is similar to Taiwan Easy Card, and there is a discount price for direct deduction.
Take the Marunouchi Line from Ikebukuro Station to Tokyo Station for about 16 minutes, and Ikebukuro is the first station, so usually you are able to get the seats.
We are scheduled to take the 10:44 Shinkansen to Hakodate. The journey takes about four hours, although the earlier one is shorter.
But we didn’t want to squeeze the trams and Shinkansen with people commuting to work, so we deliberately chose a later train, because Tokyo to Sendai is a popular route for business trips.
In addition, we are going to take the first-class cabin during this period, so of course we want to stay in the train longer! We arrived at Tokyo Station smoothly at 9 o’clock, and Tokyo Station is also super complicated.
It took a while to find the lounge of the Gran Class, I suggest that if you want to use the lounge it is best to arrive a little earlier.
The lounge provides simple drinks and biscuits. After we stayed for a while, we decided to go to the drug store to buy something, and we didn’t pay attention to the time and almost missed the train.
Finally, we arrived at the platform by running, only a few minutes away from the departure, haha! It was too late to take pictures of the train!
It’s really different when you get on the first class, it’s super comfortable, and there are many different drinks on board, as well as light meals and cakes.
Just like the plane, you will be given a bag with chocolates, changeable slippers and Menu.
As long as passengers get on and off the train during the journey, the service staff will immediately disinfect the entire seat for the next on board passenger.
You can also order unlimited drinks. I ordered a non-alcoholic sparkling wine with my meal, which is super delicious. It is a good choice for those who cannot drink alcoholic beverages.
It’s not that I can’t drink, but every time I drink a little bit, I immediately blush, making people mistakenly think that I drank a whole bottle, haha!
There are very few light meals, so we still bought Bento, which must be eaten on the train. It was really a super enjoyable journey.
Note: I visited a friend in Japan a few years ago. The friend introduced the time and method of using this app to search for transportation. It is really useful.
I recommend it to everyone. It used to be called the transfer case, but now it is called JapanTransit.
~To be continued~