Travelogue: Railways in Japan, Part 1

A Room with a View

In May 2025, my mother and I took a trip to Japan. We originally planned to go after my high school graduation in 2020, but the Covid pandemic shut that down. Like many tourists, we enjoyed Japanese food and culture. We ate at plenty of tiny ramen shops (places that fit around 12 people) and splurged on some wagyu steak dinners. We also visited temples and shrines, anime hangouts, and museums, and went to both teamLab exhibitions, which were really something. It’s not every day you literally walk through water to experience art. We saw a sumo tournament (really fun), Godzilla’s giant head (just okay), and Shibuya Crossing, billed as the world’s “busiest intersection” (also just okay).

But the main purposes of our visit was to experience all-things-trains in Japan. To that end, we rode on subways and Shinkansens, visited major railroad museums, and dropped by the Kato Model Train Store. We were there for almost three weeks, and the time flew. If you're a railfan, I HIGHLY recommend a visit to Japan.

For the Tokyo portion of the trip, we stayed in an area called Okubo near Korea Town. Our two-bedroom apartment, complete with dining room and kitchen, was on the top floor of the Hundred Stay Residence. The windows in the dining/kitchen area ran from floor to ceiling and had a spectacular view of the Okubo Station, which services JR’s Chuo Line. If you look closely at the trains in the photo, you can see the local line has yellow stripes, and express line has orange stripes. The Chuo mostly travels east and west and goes through the center of Tokyo.

Eating Near the Tracks

On both sides of the tracks are narrow streets with plenty of restaurants. We ate at a couple of these and one caveat: We had to buy tickets from a machine to get our food. It wasn’t always easy to figure out what the different buttons meant, but somehow we managed to get in the vicinity of we thought we ordered. We also ate at wagyu steakhouses, which were worth the splurge because the beef melts in your mouth.

But I'd guess that over half of our meals came the local convenience stores, like 7-Eleven, Lawsons, and Family Mart. I’m not talking about the U.S. version 7-Eleven, with iffy taquitos, pizza, and hotdogs. The meals at Japan's convenience stores are delicious and budget-friendly. There are plenty of YouTube videos where people review the different offerings, but I got addicted to the beef & onion onigiri (rice ball) and pancakes with butter & jellied syrup. My mom seemed to try every kind of noodle dish these places sold, including Italian pasta.

Our hotel was right next to the Okubo Station, where we could catch a local train. But it was only a five minute walk to the Shin-Okubo Station, which handles express trains like the Shinkansen. Btw, the "Shin" in the station's name means "new" and identifies it as a station for the Shinkansen. 

Here's a bit a trivia straight from my college thesis on rail gauges. Japan's national railway system was designed to run on narrow gauge tracks which can't handle high speed trains. So, in the 1960s, the country added "new" standard gauge tracks for the Shinkansen lines. Today, most people associate Japanese trains with high speed rail travel, but much of the country's railroad system still operates on slower, less efficient narrow gauge tracks.

In keeping with the train theme, we ate at Uobei Shin-Okubo, a conveyor belt sushi chain next to the Shin-Okubo Station. We ordered on a tablet that had an English version of the menu (there's more than just sushi). A couple of minutes after placing our order, small plates zoomed to our table on miniature Shinkansen trains. Even as we got full, we kept ordering more just to watch the trains. I'd seen YouTube videos of conveyor belt restaurants, but it was even better in person.

Pro tip: I ate raw sushi for the first time in Japan and learned quickly that it shouldn't smell fishy (pun intended). My last plate of salmon sushi at Uobei didn't pass the smell test, so my meal ended there. But this was definitely a fun experience.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g1066457-d25536953-Reviews-Uobei_Shinokubo-Shinjuku_Tokyo_Tokyo_Prefecture_Kanto.html

Getting Lost in a Train Station

I took this photo of Shinjuku from our hotel window. When it comes to vacations, I always expect a hiccup or two, and one of ours took place here. It began with our decision to find the gigantic Godzilla head in that part of town. Our route was easy enough—take the Chuo line one stop to Shinjuku Station and walk ten minutes to Godzilla. [insert howling laughter here]

But Shinjuku Station was like being in a labyrinth at rush hour. There seemed to be millions of people, hundreds of corridors, and not a single exit sign. I later found out that there are over 200 exits in Shinjuku Station, but my mom and I couldn't find a single one. We finally took a flight of stair and got outside, but discovered we were at an enclosed bus stop without a crosswalk or easy street access. Because we weren't going back into the station, we jumped over a concrete traffic barrier and jay-walked across a street.

Pro-tip: If you go to Shinjuku Station, plan ahead. There are 20 tracks and four main exits.  Make sure you know what track you get off and where the exits are. Also, 3.5 million people go through Shinjuku Station on weekdays. Navigating around them might feel like a giant game of frogger. Make sure to pack patience and a sense of humor.

We were a bit stressed after our station misadventure but determined to find [insert expletive] Godzilla. We followed Google Maps to the spot and saw ... nothing. No matter where we looked, we couldn't see that stupid head. We walked around the block and still nothing. Finally, we saw people at the opposite end of a street looking up and taking pictures. We joined them and there it was. The Big Lizard himself—jaws wide open with a paw on top of the building. We'd finally found the famous statue, and it was ... underwhelming. Godzilla is way smaller in person than it appears on the internet. My mom said she once walked across half of Copenhagen with my sister to see the Little Mermaid statue, and it was this small, underwhelming thing on some rocks in the water. Same energy here.

But life is all about the journey and not the destination, right? Right?