Just when you thought the height of luxury travel would be autonomous cars, the Japanese go and create the most beautiful train you've ever seen. Unveiled overnight, East Japan Railway's new Train Suite Shiki-shima is a ten-car sleeper train run by operator JR East offering a majestic, peaceful and completely luxurious ride.
With a capacity of just 34 people, Train Suite Shiki-shima has been two years in the making and features two large penthouse-like suites and 15 other smaller rooms at a price that ranges from $38,000 to $112,500 per person.
Operated by JR East, it offers four-day trips travelling from Hokkaido to northeastern Japan, as well as a two-day trip around Yamanashi, Nagano and Fukushima, making this arguably the plushest way to see Japan.
Not just a pretty face, designed by Ken Kiyoyuki Okuyama, the rose-coloured exterior is both futuristic and jewellery-like, while the interior itself is magnificent, featuring various nods to traditional Japanese design, in the form of washi paper, wood and Japanese lacquer finishes.
Of course, you can imagine that detail here is mind-bending; from the Cyprus baths (yes baths, wooden baths, on a train) to the silver tableware designed by Yamazaki Kinzoku, who has been commissioned to make the cutlery at Nobel Prize since 1991. Even the carpets are the same make used by the Vatican Palace and Kyoto State Guest House (Oriental Carpet Mills).
As the South China Morning Post notes, luxury sleeper trains are on the rise in Japan (another was unveiled in February by the West Japan Railway Co), despite the romance of sleeper trains having diminished in recent years. Perhaps this is the beginning of a global trend?
