Mel and our beloved travel bible... Lonely Planet's guide to Japan. Yes, she is sitting on the ground. We took the shinkansen to Kyoto. We paid roughly 50 bucks to ride for a quick half hour on the bullet train... and we didn't reserve seats so we were in a first come first serve section... well, there was no room at the inn, so we made our own seats. It was actually a lot of fun, and it was a good kickstart to our adventure.