Hi
I'm wondering how the reserved seating areas work.
We (2 adults, 3 children) will be travelling on 3 tickets between the 5 of us (youngest children can go free), so would only reserve 3 seats. Are all reserved seats in one part of the train (making it less likely that there will be free seats for the 2 without tickets). If so would we be better off to not reserve seats and hope that we can find some in the non-reserved areas?
Would rather not have children on our laps from Tokyo to Kyoto, but also don't want to pay child fares when I don't need to.
Thanks!