Kansai in Japanese kanji is 関西. It literally means the west border. Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe are some of the major cities in the Kansai region. (to learn more about Kansai read the wikipedia article here.)

Kanto in Japanese kanji is 関東. It means the east border. Some of the major Kanto cities are Tokyo, Yokohama, Chiba and so on. (Learn your geography on wikipedia.)

When we did our June 2008 trip to Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo, we decided to take the Shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo. After a quick check on hyperdia (an incredible online schedule/timetable service for all Japan’s rail systems. It’s even English-supported!!), we found the Shinkansen nozomi service from ShinOsaka (the major Osaka Shinkansen station) to Tokyo Station was ¥14050. (today’s XE rate puts that at $195.57 CDN. ouch.) The train ride takes 2hr 36mins and you get to see the all-too-famous Mount Fuji on the way. Oh, and it’s always on-time.

Flash forward to October…..
¥14050 for a train ticket? That was a little out of our budget at the time for our new trip through Chugoku, Kansai and Kanto. We finished our short visit of Nara and we were heading north, towards Yokohama the next day and needed options. (Yokohama is just a short local train ride away from Tokyo. Depends on where you are heading from and to it’s around ¥300-¥600)

We came across this bus service called the Youthful Mega Dream (青春メガドリーム - Sheishun mega doriimu). It’s an overnight bus traveling between Osaka and Tokyo. (The website is entirely in Japanese. But it has fantastic selection on various kinds of express buses traveling all over Japan. It even does online booking.) The Mega Dream was by far the cheapest option we found for getting to Tokyo. For a mere ¥3500 (48CDN as of today) we got to board from Osaka at 10:40PM and arrived in Tokyo the next morning at 8:09AM. It was like a transportation and a free night of (crappy) hotel.

It was a double-decker bus with 2 twin-seats on each side of the aisle, row after row after row. 84 seats in total. We stopped every 2 hours during our overnight ride at highway rest stops so people can run to the bathroom or run for their cigarettes. More importantly, the rest stops were crucial because it was the only time to stretch!!! As you can imagine, it’s in no way comfortable sleeping on a bus, especially when the seats recline 2 inches. Kevin is 198cm (6″ 5′). He has enough trouble even on airplanes. This bus ride was worse. The bus ride from the pretzel factory. He literally folded himself up into a ‘W’ to fit into the little Japanese seats….

Upon reaching Tokyo, we felt so broken after the overnight ride that we sat at the Starbucks for a good 3 hours, sipping coffees and nursing leg pains before we deciding to move again…….

Did we get to where we wanted to go? Yes.
Was it cheap? Yes!!
Was it sort-of fun, in a sick, twisted, masochistic kind of way? …yes.

Would we do it again? ………..