[Newsletter] Japan's stunning 8-mile rail bridge over the sea (Patreon)

▶︎ Watch the new video → https://youtu.be/Rxm8lMbCNY0

I found another superlative this week – the longest two-tier bridge in the world. Luckily for me, it involves a train too.

The Great Seto Bridge (in Japanese, Seto Ōhashi) extends several miles (yes, miles!) over the Seto Inland Sea. It links the main islands of Honshū and Shikoku.

I rode a limited express JR train called Marine Liner across it. There are a few different named limited express services that include the bridge. I believe all begin (or end) in the city of Okayama, and go to various endpoints around Shikoku.

My Marine Liner went to the city of Takamatsu. This is a city I was originally planning to visit on my local train circumnavigation of Shikoku a couple months ago, before deciding to turn inland to see bizarre Tsubojiri station on a different line.

The Marine Liner ride is pretty stunning. The road is the top tier of the Great Seto Bridge, and the train tracks are the bottom tier. If you look down, you can see the turquoise ocean waters far below between the wooden beams of the train line. Kind of heart-stopping.

The "bridge" feels like one long continuous thing, but it's technically made up of six individual bridges connected on small islands by viaducts. All quite impressive, from an engineering standpoint.

And a fun experience as a train lover, of course.

First, another Shinkansen

This was actually a long day for me. I rode from Ōsaka to Okayama by Shinkansen after breakfast, even though I had no specific times or schedule in mind (nor any tickets yet) for anything today. Both Shinkansen trains and Marine Liners are frequent so I assumed I'd be ok buying last-minute tickets. And I was.

(By the way, the very first shot of the video, the robot security thing, is actually in Ōsaka, but I edited it to imply that it's in Okayama. Shh, don't tell anybody – but I had to include that footage!)

I got to Okayama faster than I expected, and there were indeed first-class ("Green") seats available on the next Marine Liner. (Um, check the video for the big calamity related to that, though...)

The Marine Liner ride in total only lasted 52 minutes. By the time I was in Takamatsu it was barely 1:00 pm – too early to check in to my hotel.

Extra fun in Takamatsu

Instead, I sat and drank ice coffee at a second-floor cafe in the station. It was still early, so I then went to the top of nearby Takamatsu Symbol Tower. On the 29th floor is a (free!) observation deck looking out across the city and the sea. You'll see some of the images I took up there at the very end of this video.

Finally around 2:30 I walked (through the stifling heat) to Takamatsu Century Hotel, where I had a reservation. Check-in is always 3:00 pm in Japan – except this hotel, where it turns out to be 4:00. I, along with some other early arrivers, sat in the lobby a while until they finally let us into our rooms about 3:30.

(In that room later is where I recorded the video diary I recently posted (https://www.patreon.com/posts/136982935). As pitiful as my pizza confusion was in that video, I'd say my seat-buying screw-up for the Marine Liner was even more unforgivable. What, did I just move to Japan last week??)

I've wanted to ride across the Great Seto Bridge for years, so I'm glad I finally got the chance. It was indeed a great experience on a gorgeous day and, despite my bothering the poor train conductor, a smooth glide high above the sea on a train line like no other in the world.

Best of all, it was a lot smoother for me than it was for those poor people last November who got stuck on the bridge in their Marine Liner...

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Everywhere is worth exploring!

–Jeremy

P.S. In the video diary I mentioned some upcoming videos. I still haven't been able to determine how the schedule is going to go, but I may be unable to make one Patreon-only this time. Time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin'...

Those two other videos I shot on this trip, by the way, will be:

• A local Takamatsu landmark (a gymnasium shaped like a large ship) is set to be demolished, despite the efforts of a local preservation group. I visited that building and learned all about it.

• A ferry ride from Takamatsu across the Seto Inland Sea to Kōbe. A rather wild ride that was tons of fun and very different than the ferry ride I took a couple months ago (in a Patreon-only video). This one is likely to have an extended Patreon-only version. But again, I won't know until I start editing.