Trains Galore - Day 5

Bread for breakfast is normal. But specifically panda bread with Nutella is rare. But I guess that is what you have on vacations. It was incredibly yummy, and we spread a thick layer of Nutella too! 😋 😋 😋

We then visited the Railway museum. The museum is outside of Tokyo in Saitama, or in the Greater Tokyo, as you may call it.

We looked at some old trains to start with but we entered a raffle to do a Shinkansen simulator. The museum was not very busy so Marcus got a chance to do it pretty much right away.

The simulator had a few controls, like throttle, brakes, and direction lever. Our goal was to drive the train from one station to another, at high speed. We wanted to go faster than 315km/h but below 320km/h. At the end of our journey, we also had to stop at the station and line up the doors in the right place.

After, Marcus got to drive a miniature train on a small track. We got to control the speed all the way around the track. There was also a horn, and little stations to stop at on the way. That was super fun!

They had a Shinkansen observation lounge and we bought a drink and sat down to watch the trains go by. There are a bunch of lines that go right past the museum and we got to see quite a few.

Finally we watched them turn a whole locomotive around on a spinny thingy. It also honked the horn a lot which was very loud.

Overall the museum was great, although it would have been nicer with more English. We did buy some stuff at the gift shop though!

Everyone was hungry after (as usual) and so we took the train to a place some where in between Saitama and Tokyo. It was a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. The whole place is practically fully automated.

We started by getting a ticket which tells us our assigned seat. There, a conveyor belt runs next to us and sushi was already waiting to be eaten.

Since it wasn't prime eating time, we didn't know how long the sushi was out there for. To be safe, we ordered on a tablet next to us.

Rita wanted hot water for her tea, but we couldn't find any. Then we realized there was a dispenser at our table, which comes freshly hot out of the tap thing.

We tried interesting sushi like yuzu bonito and cream corn sushi.

At our table there is also a plate chute, where you put your empty plates. A machine then calculates how many plates went through, including the ones that we didn't feed through, and creates our bill for us.

There is also a game where every five plates you insert, you get a chance at winning a game. It is just luck. We only won once, but we didn't want the prize, so we just left it there.

In total we had 30 plates.

Earlier on this trip, Amelia saw a planet stuffy gachapon, and really wanted it but it was out. Today we saw the same thing out of the corner of our eyes, and IT HAD THEM! We immediately got two of them. Amelia got the moon and Marcus got Mercury.

After dinner we were full but still wanted a treat. So we rode back to Ueno station, and found Baskin Robbins. Since we don't have one close to us, it is more special.

Amelia got Berry Meets Pistachio, Marcus got Orange Sorbet, and Steve got Hojicha Brulé. Rita got matcha from another place. It was so good after a great dinner.