It’s the morning after the moving earth experience of yesterday and I was going to tell you about our trip on the bullet train but I woke up thinking about something different. I’ll tell you about the bullet train later.

Last week I was speaking to a friend. We chat every Christmas because one day years ago I was brave enough to share something I made with her. It was a fabric Christmas decoration. It might sound odd to need to be brave to share something you’ve made. I definitely think it’s odd to find something so human to be excruciatingly difficult. But it is for me. Back then I must have seen something in her that told me she was a safe place, so I shared.

Anyway, we spoke the week before this trip to Japan and she said something that a few other people have said to me, and that was: you’re right to go travelling when your can because it’s something you’ll never regret when you no longer can. I think I “get” her words today. For me the long travelling we have done since 2008 on the motorbike and in the motorhome and now this trip to Japan have seemed luxurious and decedent. A bit too special for me. I love the experience but I’m embarrassed I get to do it. I’m embarrassed to share my luck. I write about it in this blog because writing helps me to understand all my confused thoughts and feelings. Plus, it feels like I’m writing to one person. You. I trust that you are a safe person.

But today I woke up thinking that my being anything other than excited and grateful for what I get to do, is a preposterous (I’ve been reading Sherlock Holmes) way to live… or die. Imagine – and not in a scary way, please – we could each die at any moment but right now in this moment we are alive and (if we are lucky) we can move and talk and laugh and we can make choices. Choices about how to live in this tiny moment. Choices about how to share this little bit of humanity we bring to the world. I want to call it something like essence but Shiori brought me to a stationery shop today (the Japanese know how to do stationery, it’s just unfortunate we may not have enough room to being it all back) and I got adorable little paper clips… Our little bit of humanity is an adorable paperclip holding all our unique experiences, our lovely thoughts – only the lovely ones, all our ideas, all our dreams for the future and… some more nice things.

Our paper clip came with us when we were born. Some of us have been hiding it successfully ever since. But before we started hiding we were sharing our paper clip like crazy with everyone around. Imagine if you could go back to that innocent time… Sharing a smile with the man at the combini (name for small supermarket here) even though you cannot speak his language, you cannot even speak! Sharing a babbling story of your day with your baby friend at the crèche even if he seems bored. Sharing a trip with a group of strangers on the bus even if they seem odd to you. Sharing your banana experience with the other babies even if they are all much better at eating banana than you. Sharing silence with your Mammy as she holds your bottle of water even though you’re well able to hold it yourself. Sharing your joy at making a three brick tower even when it falls down.

When we arrived we were much better at sharing our paper clip of experiences with the others living and dying beside us on this planet. We were smarter then.

Ok I promised the bullet train experience but first… I do not know how we are going to survive when we get home without heated toilet seats. Oh I can imagine what you are thinking, what a silly fad, I thought so too but have I once turned off the heat? No, I have not and now I might be a little addicted. “Oh look there’s a toilet I haven’t been to!” The automatic flushing. The noise of water flowing – now I’m not sure whether that’s to encourage flow or maintain privacy and sure it doesn’t matter. I feel there’s no need to go into details about the other features, suffice to say I feel as fresh as a daisy when I leave the cubicle. Oh I nearly forgot about the odour – none. You couldn’t make this up, I have no idea where it goes, it’s just gone. And it’s not just in the airport or hotels these toilets are everywhere.

I promised I’d tell you about the bullet train… We got to the Shinkansen terminal in plenty of time on Monday. We had our tickets. We found our platform (there’s lots of bullet trains on lots of platforms) we even found our gate (there’s two gates for each carriage, one for the seats in the front and the other for seats in the rear. The time said 12.05pm and we were queuing at our gate at 11.57am. Perfect timing, go us! The train stopped, the gate opened, the doors opened, we filed on and found our seats – all seats are reserved. But there was a bag in my seat by the window. We checked our tickets again. Yes we had the right seats. Now what? A Japanese woman approached with more bags and squeezed past us to sit on my seat. I caught Denis’ eye, he said “excuse me” (he had lost the toss in the eye game) “I think these are our seats” while shoving our tickets towards her in a not very bowing way. She looked and looked again and then said, “another train” Denis understood first… We are too early! This isn’t my seat! This isn’t even our train! We have to get off! Now!

A very awkward race towards the door later and we were back on the platform. The train pulled off. If your ticket says 12.05pm that means 11.57 is too early. These huge long trains get into the station, disembark their passengers, load more passengers and get out of the station within 3 minutes! They are never late (can that be really true?) We had less than 30 seconds to spare. But we were wiser. There’s a train number on the tickets and the overhead screens show the number of the train now standing at your gate. We get on the next train. And there was no one sitting in our seats.

It’s 176km from Osaka to Nagoya. It would take 2 hours and 30 minutes to drive but the Shinkansen took 50 minutes – plenty of time to try out the toilets but our earlier confusion made me wary of leaving my seat so I’ll try it out on the way back. It travels at speeds up to 320km per hour. It has to slow down to let people on and off, unfortunately, I think that’s why it took so long…

We settled down to admire the countryside and the bento boxes (cute take away lunch boxes you can buy at the station and elsewhere) of the other passengers. At one point I saw someone taking a picture out the window at a snow covered mountain in the distance. Denis said, “that’s Mount Fuji”, the most loved mountain in Japan. I said, “how do you know?” He said “google it.” I googled, “can you see Mount Fuji from the bullet train between Osaka and Nagoya?” You can. Lucky guess. I had thought we wouldn’t get a chance to see it on this trip to Japan but there it was, out the window on the other side of the train looking exactly like it does on the telly.

We stood up in plenty of time to exit the train at Nagoya (once bitten) and found our way through the station to the metro. It did seem there was less English translations here but we’re seasoned Japan rail travellers now… Fingers crossed.

In case you need to hear this today: Share your stories* even if you think they’re boring or just about toilets or mistakes because right now there are people out there missing something… a moment with you. xxx

*Or your art, or your ideas or whatever your adorable paperclip holds