You don’t have stay long in Japan – I was there for just over a week – to appreciate the advantage of having a high-speed rail network that isn’t tied to nineteenth-century civil engineering.

The first railway in Japan opened in 1872 between Tokyo and Yokohama.  In response to the mountainous terrain across the archipelago the standard railway gauge was set at 3ft 6in which reduced construction costs but limited maximum speeds.

The shinkansen, which English speakers call the bullet train, was instrumental in Japan’s recovery after the widespread destruction at the end of the Second World War. 

There was every incentive after 1945 to provide a completely new network serving major towns and cities with 4ft 8½in-gauge rolling stock capable of speeds up to 200mph on separate tracks independent of freight and stopping passenger trains.  Narrow-gauge services are restricted to a top speed of 90mph at most, usually 81mph.

Shinkansen trains run as eight- or sixteen-car units, much of which is reserved seating with lots of legroom.  There are smoking rooms in some carriages and a multiplicity of lavatories, including urinals for gents.  Travelling at up to 200mph has a fast-forward effect on the view of the scenery as the high-speed route slices through the landscape in a series of tunnels and bridges. 

The Shinkansen is easy to get used to.  Stand on the platform where the carriage is going to draw up.  Drop the luggage behind the seats at the back end of the car:  I worked out that this space is created by the need to rotate the seats with every change of direction. 

At stations on the route from Tokyo to Hiroshima I twice watched platform staff pointing and waving to no-one in particular, rather like those odd people you sometimes encounter in the street.  This turns out to be perfectly normal, enshrined in the railway regulations to encourage efficiency and safety.  It’s called Pointing and Calling.  On-board train crew bow on entering and leaving each carriage.  Presumably they’re reminding themselves who is paying their wages.

My second journey, from Hiroshima to Tokyo, was so relaxing I fell asleep and woke in time to see Mount Fuji.  It really is enormous, and very beautiful.  The summit was snow-covered and it was wreathed in cloud.  I didn’t attempt to photograph it, because the colours would not have rendered well through glass and because of the foreground clutter as the train sped past.  I simply looked at it and enjoyed it.

The sandwich selection I bought from the trolley on the Osaka-Hiroshima leg of my journey put British on-train refreshments to shame – three separate fillings, a cold chicken burger with pickle, ham and cheese, and egg and mayonnaise, on delicately soft white and brown bread with the crusts cut off.  All, with coffee, for a little more than £5.

It’s all well and good playing at Japanese life while remaining functionally illiterate in the language and culture, but though I received nothing but goodwill and good manners all week, it’s a relief to return to the occidental, Anglophone world.

However, after a tiresome twelve-hour flight back I travelled home from Heathrow to Sheffield via Doncaster with Japanese expectations.  A Japanese stranger would wonder why the on-train crew didn’t bow to the passengers, why the train-manager set up his stall – complete with ticket-machine and mobile-phone charger – in the first-class quiet coach and then sat munching sandwiches off the trolley in front of the passengers (both of us), why it was forbidden (in 2016) to flush the lavatory when the train is standing in a station, why half the people on the station platform were inebriated at 7.30pm on a Saturday, why the taxi doors didn’t open automatically when you approach the rank, why the taxi-driver didn’t get off his backside to deal with heavy luggage and then had to ask for directions to your destination.

When eventually the taxi drew up outside my front door I paid the exact fare and made a huge performance of lugging my luggage on to the pavement, and then declared, “There you are.  I’ve twice saved you getting wet.”  And slammed the cab door. 

It’s good to be home.