Entries this day: Hayabusa Massage

Hayabusa

2:19pm JST Friday 18 February 2011 (day 14940)

Hayabusa is the transliteration of はやぶさ, the name of a train that used to run from 1950s to March 2009, but was taken out of service due to declining ridership. はやぶさ is also the name of a new train service scheduled to start in March 2011, using some beautiful new emerald(?) green shinkansen rolling stock called E5.

I only know this because JR East (train company), has been advertising the shiz out of the train's debut, along with the tagline "Made In Dream," despite the trains actually having been made in Japan by Hitachi and Kawasaki.

There will be ten cars per train, eight of which are normal cattle class, with up to 100 seats per car (5 seats across). The 9th car is the Green Car, which in Japanese train parlance, means the sweet seats on the train, which include beverage service, including sweets. There will be 55 such seats in the Green Car, usually 4 across, save for one spot which could be used for a wheel chair.

The tenth car trumps the Green Car by being called Gran Class, and having only three seats across, each of which feature lights, electrical outlets, swimming pool (*), dog grooming (*), and a private jetpack (*) to exit the train in an emergency.

(*) not.

The coolest part to me is that the wheels seem to be enclosed by the outer skin of the train, allowing for super Speedy McSpeed.

The trains will travel up to 300km/hour until 2012, when it'll get the green light to 320km/hour. I wonder how much that will affect the time schedule.

I kinda want to go see them on debut day, but I can imagine the crowds will be frustratingly large.

Massage

2:16pm JST Friday 18 February 2011 (day 14940)

Headed to Atsugi Navy Base to give two massages: one to a former recipient, and one to her husband.