Random Japan

Lotteria serves up Shinkansen H5 Series Set to mark inaugural bullet train service to Hokkaido

Oona McGee

Because the best way to celebrate the arrival of a fast train is with a serving of fast food.

After 10 years of construction, the first Shinkansen bullet train service to Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido is set to make its inaugural trip on 26 March this year. The new route will run between Shin-Aomori Station on the Japanese mainland and Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto via the underwater Seikan Tunnel, making the journey in an hour and shaving up to 80 minutes off the trip from Tokyo, which currently stands at five-and-half hours by train.

While there’s been a lot of hype in the media about the new service, there’s been just as much interest in the new model of Shinkansen that will be ferrying passengers under the Tsugaru Strait. Called the H5 series, the new train features the same shape as the E5 series currently used on the Tohoku Shinkansen line. With a green top and white lower half, the two colours are separated by a line of purple, to symbolise the lilac, lupin and lavender farms that Hokkaido is famous for.



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Tokyo Mask Festival invites visitors to put on a new face and join the masquerade

Author Victor Hugo once said, “Virtue has a veil, vice a mask,” but what if Japanese, contemporary, and fetish masks are your vice? You’ll want to check out Tokyo Mask Festival Vol. 2!

Although most of the masks you’ll see the average Japanese person wearing today are the surgical kind as polite measure to help prevent passing on colds and other airborne germs, the country has a rich history of wearing masks, from samurai and kendo men masks used to protect skillful soldiers and swordsmen, to the more decorative kinds worn by decora fashionista and a number of Japanese glam bands, or visual kei bands, today. Recently BABYMETAL, a mash-up of idols and guys shredding on their guitars, have made the “kitsune” mask recognizable both within Japan and abroad with their band’s fox-God theme.