the shinkansen (bullet train)...

and Anpanman!

We took the Shinkansen from Hachinohe to Sendai to go to the Anpanman Children's Museum.

Look at how clean the train platform is!

This is the Green Class Car on a Hayabusa. We got Green Class tickets because Maddie and I sat on Mommy and Daddy's laps and they are only ¥1500 more than a regular ticket.

Hayabusa are the fastest Shinkansen trains. They go 320 km/h (199 mph) between Sendai and Morioka! 

When we got to Sendai, we had to walk a couple of blocks to the Anpanman museum and we saw a 7-11. Mommy and Daddy were kind of upset that they don't sell Slurpees in Japan.

There it is!

It's all decorated for Christmas. I guess in Japan the Christmas season starts the day after Halloween because they are already playing Christmas music at the mall and they have their Christmas tree up.

Look! Creampanda, Anpanman, and Akachanman are wearing Santa hats.

Maddie was helping Uncle Jam make some new heads for Anpanman. Anpanman's head is made out of anpan, which is a sweet roll with red bean paste filling. He lets people who are hungry have bites of his head. When he does that he gets weak, so Uncle Jam makes him a new head. I guess he also gets weak if his head gets wet. So he needs lots of new heads.

Maddie wanted to hold Anpanman's hand.

This is Baikinman. He's a bad guy from Germ Planet. His name means Bacteria Man in English. He is always trying to get Anpanman and his friends.

Maddie liked flying the Baikincopter. I am glad that it didn't take her away to Germ Planet.

Maddie got to give Currypanman a hug while I was having a bottle. Currypanman is Anpanman's friend and his head is full of red-hot curry. He can use the curry in his head to burn bad guys.

I climbed up here

because I needed to get away from the baikin (germs)!

They had a fun slide. Of course I wasn't allowed to go on it. I can't wait until I get big! The characters on top of the slides are Anpanman, Currypanman, Shokupanman, Melonpanna, and Rollpanna. Shokupan is yummy Japanese white bread, that's why his head looks like white bread!

Mommy made us Christmas stockings with Shokupanman for Daddy, Rollpanna for herself, Melonpanna for Maddie, and Anpanman for me! I'm very proud of her and think she did a good job.

Even the bathroom and the baby room at the museum were decorated!

This is Dokinchan, she's Baikinman's partner in crime, at her diner outside of the museum. They had hot dogs and stuff, but we decided to go to McDonald's for lunch because they had a line.

Anpanman had his own restaurant also. There was plastic food in the window like at a lot of Japanese restaurants. It's kind of neat to be able to see what your food will look like before you order it... especially if you can't read Japanese!

It's shadow us! I'm the cute one in the stroller :-)

Here's a picture that you can actually see me in! That's Maddie in the back photobombing. I think she has the taking pictures in Japan thing down. (look at her doing the "v" sign)

They have cool pictures of the trains on the platform at Sendai Station so you know where to stand. Mommy is still amazed at how clean everything is in Japan. She would never, ever, ever let one of us touch the floor in Penn Station!

Even the tracks are clean!

We learned that the nose cones of the Shinkansen trains open up so that two trains can be coupled together!

   

This is our train on the right (it's a Hayate) coupled with a Komachi. The Komachi uncouples at Morioka, about halfway back to Hachinohe, and goes on to Akita on the west coast. They have have narrower track going to Akita so the Hayate and Hyabusa trains can't go there, but the Komachi trains are dual gauge.

Here we are on the Shinkansen. The seats on the Green Class cars are really comfy.

And the bathrooms are really, really clean! We had to test out the kiddie seat after Mommy changed my diaper.

Our loot from the museum... an Anpanman book that is translated to English, a Melonpanna pastry for Moo, Anpanman blocks for me and Dokinchan blocks for Maddie, and some socks that I am not supposed to know about because they are going in my Christmas stocking.

-drew

(with some help from Mommy)