[kysol]

Just throwing this out there, buy JR Passes if you are going to be traveling a lot via Shinkansen (especially if you did what we did, Osaka->Kagashima->Kumamoto->Beppu->Nagasaki->Hiroshima->Kyoto->Osaka), it's worth it.

[flashman]

JR passes are phenomenal value, and give you a lot of flexibility. We once caught the wrong train from Nara and ended up in Osaka instead of Kyoto. No big deal: the next Shinkansen was a fifteen-minute wait, made the 50km trip in about the same amount of time, and cost us zero dollars on top of what we'd already paid for our passes.