Japan - Getting Around

Bicycles were everywhere and like most large cities most people walked or took the subways. Japan has an extensive subway and rail system which makes getting around fairly easy if you are willing to try to read the signs and make some sense of them. Most of them had an English translation so it isn't that bad.



And while we never truly experienced being shoved onto a train by one of the Pushers we did have to pack onto a few trains during busy periods and I thought I was going to die. It was very hot and very stuffy. No moving air and sometimes I didn’t have room to get my jacket off. Needless to say I would be sweating my balls off by the time we got to one of our stops.

At one point, we were trying to get to the Narita airport and our train ticket said we had reserved seating on the N’EX (Narita Express), but every train that came through pretty much looked like the video above – they weren’t being pushed onto the train, but several people had trouble squeezing on and “sucking it in” so the doors would close. I told my g/f “Fuck that, I’m going back up (street side) to find a bar if it’s like that.” Fortunately, the N’EX was really nice and not crowded.

One thing that was a tad confusing is that there are two primary rail systems – the subway and the JR trains. To take a step further, we picked up JR rail passes but were only permitted to use them on certain trains. You end up switching between the JR trains and the subways quite a bit even though they may go to the same locations. BTW – if you go to Japan you need to get your JR Rail Pass certificate in the U.S. before you go. They will not issue one to you once you are in Japan. Once there, you have to exchange the certificate for the pass. It’s not hard but again, you have to get the certificate before you go or you are screwed.

But it really wasn’t that bad once you got used to it. The most difficult part of it was getting used to how crowded it was. Even at non-peak times some of the places were just outright packed. We saw a few exasperated European or Western travelers when we had to go through Tokyo station near rush-hour. We had been traveling for a week at this point so we were used to it, but you could tell the noobs were having trouble dealing with it.

Oh! And don’t forget the stairs. If you are handi-crippled or a fat bastard you are going to have problems navigating the subways and rail systems. It’s not that they don’t have any provisions for handi-crippleds, but there aren’t many. You would have to go way out of your way to find an elevator. Mostly it’s stairs. Up the stairs, down the stairs, up the stairs…etc. In some cases you would go down the stairs, do a u-turn, and go up another flight of stairs (not kidding). I saw this one guy in Tokyo station carrying his luggage and his snowboard bag and he was stuck in a throng of people hiking stairs behind a little old lady. He couldn’t get out from behind her and he was obviously tired of hiking stairs with all of his stuff. I wanted to slap him on the back as I was passing him and say “Welcome to Japan!”

We read that you should travel light in Japan, and that was good advice. Most of the trains (subway, JR, etc.) and other forms of transportation do not have much space for baggage. If you can keep it down to about two small bags you’ll be fine. One problem with this is that you will run out of clean clothes. I only found ONE public Laundromat the entire time I was there. Even the hotels don’t have them, but you can pay a fortune for laundry service if you want it. My advice? Take some laundry soap and do your stuff in the hotel sink, then let it dry on the rack / line for a couple of days.