When I first went to Japan, I had no idea how to use the public transportation. It wasn’t that the station names and signs were all in Japanese (they were) or that I couldn’t understand the announcements (I couldn’t); it’s that I’d never had to use such a huge, complex public transportation system. I barely even knew how to navigate the local bus system in my hometown, let alone the world’s biggest rat’s nest of rail lines!
I remember a particular instance in which I was headed home early from school. I walked to Takadanobaba Station as usual, but found that they were doing maintenance on the westbound Chuo line; that is, the only line running through my home station. Naturally, because this is life and life knows how to laugh in your face, the maintenance was scheduled between Shinjuku (where I picked up the westbound Chuo) and Kokubunji (one stop past my home station).
After staring at the map for a few minutes, I decided I’d take the “back way.” Although my normal route took me on two lines through 14 stations culminating in a 50-minute commute, I’d noticed that there was a different way that took four lines through 19 stations, and which I figured would take two hours at worst. Since I was headed home early, it would end up being a zero-sum compared with my normal route, and would probably get me home way earlier than waiting for my regular line to clear up! I bought my ticket and got on the train.
Four hours later, well after the sun had set, I shambled off the train at my home station, the westbound Chuo belching out its fifth or sixth load of passengers.
I would later discover that I could have taken a much less painful route by using the subway to travel underneath my normal route and bring me within a pleasant hour’s walk of my house (or a pleasant 15-minute walk to my favorite part of Tokyo where I could have waited the damn train out). The reason I didn’t do that?: the route wasn’t indicated on the map because I was in the wrong part of the station.
It’s easy to be like me in this situation. Even New Yorkers have trouble figuring out how to get from point A to point B in Tokyo, so how much more those of us that aren’t New Yorkers? To make matters worse, there aren’t a lot of good articles on the internet about how to navigate in even the most cursory fashion—everyone seems to assume that you already know what you’re doing or that you’ll never get it even if they try to explain.
In an attempt to remedy this, I’m going to post a series on navigating the Japanese train system. Although the information will use Tokyo as the primary example because of its complexity, this information should serve you throughout the country.
Table of Contents
- Finding a Station
- Buying Tickets
- Finding Your Destination
- Finding Your Platform
- Boarding the Train
- Manners
- Transfers
- Exiting the Station
- Get Help
sutematsu 