After enjoying my stay at Kanazawa, the next on my itinerary for this Japan trip was Nagano. Now there are a number of ways to travel to this prefecture from Kanazawa but I decided to try out the Hokuriku Shinkansen Green Car (this is different from the Hokuriku Shinkansen Gran Class). My research said that this bullet train ran on a line that offered great views/ but really all I wanted was to get some additional rest while travelling and this allowed me to do just that.
My Hokuriku Shinkansen Green Car Experience: More Comfort at an Extra Cost
Getting a seat on the Hokuriku Shinkansen Green Car is relatively easy and there are two services that you could choose. These are the Kagayaki and Hakutaka services. Considered the faster of the two, the Kagayaki service gets you to Nagano from Kanazawa in an hour and 5 minutes. On the other hand, the Hakutaka service will take slightly longer (an hour and 26 minutes) to get to Nagano and you’ll be paying near similar rates.
I think getting the Kagayaki service might be the better option but the Hakutaka also isn’t that bad. The thing is, the seats in either of these services are really spacious. Typically regular shinkansen cars feature 5 seats in a row. Green Cars on the other hand, only have four which translates to the seats being wider and the passenger having more room to move their legs.
These are the control buttons for the seats. There’s an option to turn on the seat’s reading light as well as options for reclining the seat and the leg rest. As for the right-most button, it’s used to return the seat to the upright position.
Here is an explanation of what the seat can do in both English and Japanese. Aside from the adjustments, you can also find an electrical outlet on the armrest. This is particularly useful if you’re looking to power up your gadgets or equipment. It should also be noted that the sign is on a retractable table that you can use to hold some of your things (e.g. handbags, laptops/tablets, and lunchboxes).
Here’s a Green Car seat with buttons that aren’t lit up yet. These adjustment buttons typically become usable once they’ve lit up which is usually once somebody is on the seat.
Here’s a wider angle view of the seats in this row. As you can see, there’s plenty of legroom for passengers of average height. Taller passengers might not be able to use the leg rest but there should still be enough space for their legs to not touch the seat in front of them.
Now seated and decided to hang my jacket here. I must say, the seat is really comfortable and I liked that there weren’t that many people in the car (at least at the time I took the picture). That said, I did have some thoughts about the ride.
So I get that the ride in a Green Car is more comfortable compared to a standard car but is this really worth the extra cost? Maybe for longer distances but for what amounts to an hour long ride I feel like I could soldier on in one of the standard cars. Anyway, it was still an okay experience and I still got to Nagano in time and in one piece.
