The wheels on the bus...

Yesterday was J's 8-month birthday. We celebrated with a little coffee picnic in a park at the confluence of the Kamo and Takano rivers, about a 25 minute walk from our house through a shrine and wooded area. S had class yesterday, so he went to the office from our picnic. I was mostly caught up on work, so I decided to jump on a train and take J downtown for a little shopping. (Secretly, I conjured up an entire shopping trip just to justify getting a box of my favorite chocolate croissants--"Choco Cros").

We remarked that once upon a time we would plan for 6 months to end up in downtown Kyoto, and now we can go on a whim and be in the heart of the temple district or in one of the downtown shopping arcades in just 20 minutes or so. Yesterday, all it took was a walk across the street the Keihan train line, and then two stops to Shijo Street and its specialty shops and covered arcades.

One of my students in Vermont this semester is from Nara. She noted recently that, coming from Japan, she was shocked by the lack of public transportation in the U.S. Compared to Japan, it is shocking. For example, here are some places we can go from our apartment. We walk five minutes to take our little local Eizan train to two mountain villages, one which ends up in a beautiful hiking spot (you can hike over a mountain to another train station and go home from there); the other ends up at a cable car and ropeway to the top of Mt. Hiei. Beautiful. The other direction, our little train takes us to its terminal in the northern part of downtown Kyoto.

The Eizan trains are cute--just one or two cars running every seven minutes or so. They're called "one-man," which we thought referred to the fact that it's just one car, but some have two cars, so it might refer to the fact that it's staffed by just one engineer who is also the conductor. For roughly $2, we can get to the terminal; for roughly $4, we can get to the mountains.

The Eizan deposits us at the Keihan terminal--a much more extensive private train line that takes us downtown and connects us to subway and other train lines. If we time it right, we can get off the Eizan and right on a Keihan limited express (tokkyu) and be in downtown Kyoto in about 15 minutes. The nice thing about the Keihan line is that it's the same price for local or fast trains, so we usually just wait for an express since it passes the locals anyway. We can also take this train line all the way to Osaka (about 50 minutes on the limited express)--for less than $5. A couple of weeks ago, little J and I decided to meet S in Osaka after his class in Kobe. I thoroughly enjoyed texting him from the train: "on train. C u 6 @ big man." This means that we met at "Big Man"--the large screen television in Osaka's Umeda station that serves as a meeting point for hundreds of people each day (there's a new big screen on the other side of the terminal cleverly called "Co-Big Man"). I've always wanted to meet someone at Big Man!

The Keihan trains are nice. We rode the Keihan to Uji last weekend to visit a temple and buy some new tea. We returned via a rapid express "Saloon Series 3000" train--we didn't see a saloon, but the train was very nice. All Japanese trains are very clean and on time. The platforms are clearly marked so we know just where to stand for the open doors, and J and I are becoming adept at knowing which car will be closest to the elevator (for the stroller) at our destination.

Kyoto also has an extensive subway and bus system. All buses cost 220 yen (just over $2), and we have two major bus lines just outside our door. These take us to the botanical garden, Kyoto University, the Silver Pavillion, the Golden Pavillion, the Philosopher's Path, many parks, temples and shrines, the downtown Gion district, and Kyoto Station. The buses, like the trains, are frequent and incredibly easy to ride. Also, we can always count on the stations and bus terminals to have restaurants and shopping nearby.

People are nice on public transportation, too. They're always giving up their seat for whomever is holding the baby, and they often strike up a (somewhat one-sided) conversation with or about little J, so we can count on entertainment for the baby. On our little "one-man" train, the engineer gets off the train to help me with the stroller.

If he's late, S sometimes rides the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kobe for class. We'll take that to Kyushu later this month and Tokyo next month. Last time we were in New York in Penn Station waiting for Amtrak, we heard an announcement that Amtrak's high speed train was delayed three hours. What's the point of a high speed train if it's delayed at the station? You don't hear announcements like this in Japan.

Such easy access to public transportation is going to be hard to give up when we leave Japan. Here's our plan for tomorrow: we'll ride the bus a few stops to Kitaoji terminal where we'll get the subway downtown. There, we'll catch the Hankyu limited express to Umeda (Osaka), but we'll get off just shy of Osaka to get on the line to Kobe. I'll get off in Nishinomiya at a shopping center that has a baby store (we're on the lookout for organic baby goods), and J and I will probably have coffee somewhere and take a walk. S will continue on to Kobe where he teaches his class at Kobe U. Later, we'll meet up again at Big Man in Umeda to visit the English language section of the large bookstore there (we're looking for a field guide to the Kansai region) and the "food museum" floor (i.e., restaurant floor), where we'll have supper at one of the forty or so restaurants in the station. Then, we'll head home via train, subway, and bus. All this travel between three major cities will cost us, round trip, less than $20 each. J, because he's so cute (and small) rides free.