The highway bus is probably the most economical way to go, but if you're pressed for time like I was on my way out of the country (bloody JR buses and their massively stuffed up bus schedules) the bullet train is the faster, more comfortable and more unreasonably expensive option.
Considering all the transfers from the suburbs of Melbourne through to Tullamarine Airport, to Narita, the journey to the nearest bullet train stop in Koriyama then the local train back to my town and the taxi ride to my apartment, I now kinda miss staying in Sydney 15 minutes away from Kingsford-Smith by taxi. Even though I started out on what was one of the earliest flights out of Melbourne, I only just managed to catch the last train of the day back to my town, and only because I totally disregarded the JR ticketmaster's itinerary which would have seen me get off the bullet train south of my town without backtracking from Koriyama, which is just slightly further north. If there's one thing I've learned from commuting in Japan, it's that you should first ask for directions, then ignore them and trust your own judgement.
This is not to say the system doesn't work; it does, only if you either know your way around really well, or are completely fluent in the language. Otherwise it's just better to ask someone else to book your stuff for you. On the whole though, the public transport system, at least in major cities, is clean, efficient and quite pleasant to travel on. And where else would you see cleaning staff meticulously tidy up the interior of some of the fastest trains in the world, equipped with mechanized seats so they'll automatically turn to face the right direction for the next trip?
I gotta get me that SLR. My idiot-proof digital compact is getting a little too small for this particular idiot.
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