The Kousoku bus in Japan (My favorite way to travel by!)

Travelling around Japan is easy... by kousoku bus(Speedy bus).

I totally got into this by accident(Silly mistake...), after buying Nagoya(HKG-NGO) air tickets and booking Oosaka hotels, I discovered that NAGOYA and KYOTO are NOT the SAME PLACE.

Both names just sound the same real ancient to me...

and thus I hooked up.

My plan was:

Kyoto-Nara-Osaka-Kyoto(Area within one-hour distance)

My actual rundown was:

Nagoya-Osaka-Nagoya 

(FYI, NGO-KIX is around three hours distance on the ground,

of course I can ride on Shinkansen rail/ New trunk line, 

making the single journey for only 1 hour, 

but the cost is around 13000 yen per round ticket )

https://www.kousokubus.net/PC/index.aspx

I checked out all my possible means and finally decided to go by 

高速バス (Speedy buses). Nagoya to Osaka in about 2hr 45min, drop by 伊賀(Iga, a place famous for Ninja, didn't get fruits anyway...had so much fun even I just browsed there for 15 minutes), the price per round journey is ~4800yen (45 USD?).

The speedy bus system comes pretty handy for interstates travel in Japan, north to Hokkaido, south to Honshu. Travel time ranges from one to ten hours(!!!, for night bus). I really admire that Japanese teenagers can travel so many different amazing places in a single mother nation. The main hurdle of using buses is that this online booking system is only available in Japanese, foreigners with issues in online reservation, they can go directly on site(most customer service centres are near the bus terminal).  

ヾ(○´▽｀○)ノ

If you understand Japanese it would be just fine, online booking, pay by credit card,  hold the eticket on board(the bus driver will check), hang your luggage under the coach, enjoy the ride....and arrive(also holding the eticket when leaving the bus, the driver will double check). 

Compared to rails, buses offer you another way point- to- point to get into a city without waiting and transfer; just like in Europe, trains and buses can always get you into the city central instead of airplanes, as the bus will drive you the way right in to a main JR terminal. 

(Like in Osaka, the bus terminal is just nearby Osaka JR shinkansen stop, for going to another spot in the city, just go straight to the Umeda station(M16) for the Midōsuji Line.)

(๑・ิ⋖⋗・ิ๑) 

To my understanding, 

JR shinkansen is for city to city travel(inter-cities)

Umeda (Municipal) Subway is for intra-city travels.

Osaka and Umeda are the same "osaka "station just one street apart.

Next time I will consider travel by bus too. 

It's just convenient~ 

And I enjoyed the scenery viewed from a moving coach.^^