Japanese Garden in Montreal Botanic Garden and how a high speed train from Quebec City would be awesome

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Doesn't it look like a garden you would find in Japan? I think it totally does and it has every right to be very popular in Montreal. I had a few posts related to pictures taken at the Botanical Garden in Montreal, and this is one of my favorites. This is a place I go to practically every time we go for a weekend trip. I cannot recommend it enough. moreover during the summer. If you take your time, it can take you more than half a day to see everything and not a second is lost.
There is just one thing missing in the picture for people living in Quebec City that would like to Montreal more often, and vice versa... An efficient means of transportation.

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Indeed, although Quebec City and Montreal are only 250km apart, whatever means of transport you choose would take a good 3 hours or more. The road is awfully boring (straight road for 200km basically), the bus is slower, the train is even more slower and with a plane it's expensive and inefficient with lots of waiting.
I can't count the times I wished we had a high-speed train like the TGV or the Shinkansen.
In France, if you live in Lille, it just takes 1h to get to to Paris for a distance of 200km. There are lots of people living in Lille and working in Paris (pay is better).
In Japan, the Shinkansen can take you from Tokyo to Kyoto in a little bit more than 3 hours for a distance of 450km. Not something you would do every day, but for spending a weekend there? Totally. By car, it takes nearly 6 hours. Doable, but tiring, whereas you can sleep in a train.

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Japanese people are in love with their Shinkansen, and it's understandable, as it is an incredible piece of technology: it's very comfortable, 99% on time, and it just brings every city closer.

_{Shinkansen arriving in Okayama. We took it to go to Hiroshima, if my memory serves well.}

Apart from the fact that people in Japan are very respectful of people leaving/entering the train, there is another thing that impressed me a lot.
You see, I took the high-speed train multiple times in France, and I don't have any statistics, but while it is indeed fast, leaving on time and arriving on time was not guaranteed at all. I might say that half of the time you either arrive at least slight late.

And yet, at the end of our first trip to Japan in 2014, here we are in Kyoto. We're waiting for our high speed train that would take us back to Tokyo. We see a Shinkansen arrive on the expected track. It's 10:49 am, our train is supposed to leave at 10:58 am. My wife tells me we should board, because it has to be this one. I look at the electronic display above the wagon, it does not say Tokyo... I'm puzzled.
In France, there is not a chance you would see a high-speed train arrive on the same track 5 to 10 minutes after another one. A normal train, sure, a high-speed one, no!!!

I tell my wife we should wait because it does not say Tokyo. She reluctantly agrees... after asking another person waiting like us (not even mad, I just pumped my chest and showed her my I told you look).
Sure enough, our high speed train arrives at exactly 10:56am. We left at 10:58am. I was in total disbelief at the precision and efficiency of the Japanese Rail.

Also, for us tourists in Japan, if you ever plan to visit at least two cities, it is worth buying a JR Rail Pass. We did that both times we were there, it will save you lots of money. Tokyo to Kyoto would cost you a whopping $120, whereas the rail pass costs $270. With that, you can take any JR means of transport for free for 7 days, including a lot of metro/trains in Tokyo.

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Anyway, I digressed a lot. I just wanted to say how much I would like us to be able to say "Honey, going to Montreal to buy something, be back in 3 hours" ... And here I am writing a 800 word post, whereas I have a few others in progress I just can't seem to finish. Sometimes it's just very easy to write.

As a bonus, here is a picture of the Evangelion themed Shinkansen I had the chance to see once (I think it was in Osaka, but not sure), the Shinkansen EVA 500:

_{This great picture is from flickr and was taken by Ken Lee, not me}

I just saw that its service was terminated in 2018, but there are always other "special" trains to look for... Just google for "shinkansen special trains", and you'll see what I mean...