I used to consider myself a somewhat experienced subway rider. From Boston to Buenos Aires, Santiago, London, Rome, and that shuttle at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport (you know the one), I thought I had just about seen it all.
I was wrong.
Japan's rail system is truly something to behold. It's elaborate, the type of system that makes no sense until it makes perfect sense. Other small countries have one metro in their largest city. In Japan, the entire island is crisscrossed with a series of subways, commuter rails, love trains (!) and the Shinkansen, the super-fast bullet train you may have heard about. Many tourists opt for a JR Pass to travel around the country, but we used a travel agent so we received a packet of rail tickets on arrival, conveniently marked with numerals to match our itinerary (as neither of us reads Japanese, the tickets themselves may as well have been blank sheets of paper).
Within 24 hours of our arrival, our guide introduced us to the Yamanote Line (山手線), a railway loop line circling Tokyo, and one of its busiest, servicing about 4 million people a day, and running at 167% capacity in some places #overcrowding #ThanksWikipedia. The Yamanote "green" Line is operated by East Japan Railway Company. (Have I mentioned that each system is operated by a different company? I still don't understand the logistics of this, but click here if you're interested.)
Our very patient guide painstakingly explained how to get from our hotel to the Yamanote line, how to transfer to other lines, and transfer again from there. This involved at least an hour of travel in pouring rain and most charmingly, handing a hand-drawn slip of paper to a uniformed man stationed at one of the metro stops in exchange for a different ticket. Or something? Her intention was to show us a shortcut to save money when transferring, but it pretty quickly became clear that we weren't going to be able to retrace this route, saved yen or otherwise. Gun to my head, I think I could have figured out the first third of the journey by sight alone, but after that? Woof.
Amid all this confusion, though, the railway system has several clever details that definitely help locals and tourists alike. For example, each car has an electronic monitor showing you the name of the next stop, which car you are in, which side the doors are opening, and where the nearest exits are. Once you exit, there is an intense map showing you every possible outcome of walking in every possible direction: street exits, transfers to other lines, everything.
This is super helpful for orientation, and here's why: in my experience, many subway stops just have one "down" staircase on one side of the street, and another for exiting passengers on the other side, maybe two. It's possible to land on the wrong platform (easy fix) or exit one street over from where you mean to, but that's really about all the damage you can do. In Japan, you might have a choice to exit to one of five streets, three other lines or an underground shopping mall. (Kyoto, you sly dog). It really is amazing once you get the hang of it. (This took my husband two days, and me at least three.)
My favorite part of riding the subway though, other than the adorable Japanese schoolchildren, was listening to the woman who does the voice recordings for upcoming stops. Ever the amateur linguist, I entertained myself by trying to guess how the English transliteration of each station was pronounced. My favorite was Hatchōbori, which in Midwestern English would read as "Hatch-oh-borry". Or maybe Hatchaberry, if you were trying to invent a new type of hybrid fruit. Wrong! It's actually more like "Hahtchoh-bodi". And let's not forget Ueno (Way-no) and Hamamatsuchō, a station near Tokyo Disney I still can't pronounce. But if you have ideas, I'm all ears - much like the Mickey grab ring (below) aboard the monorail-esque Disney Resort Line.
Toward the end of our travels, we experienced the Shinkansen bullet train (above left), which runs on an incredibly precise timetable, and has a snack and beverage cart, airplane style. It also has a designated smoking car, which feels actually crazy in 2020, but mainly because you can instantly smell any passengers or staff who have walked through it ever-so-briefly.
The Shinkansen are part of the Japan Rail (JR) Network and they run up to 320 km/h (roughly 200 mph). I can confirm that this feels fast, though others have disagreed. I'm not a totally objective observer because during our second trip, I was deathly ill from food poisoning and/or overdoing it in the hot springs. I was pale, sweaty, and very intensely praying that the train could go even faster to get me to the hotel. I must have looked like the actual Ghost of Tourists Past haunting the hallways. Thanks to some Japanese Tylenol and a few bottles of Pocari Sweat (a real drink that is another blog post entirely), I recovered in time to enjoy the many delights of Kyoto. And thank God, because there were even more transportation riddles awaiting us there.
In the end, though, these types of cross-cultural head-scratchers are what makes our travels unforgettable. Whether it's a missed train, getting lost underground, or hopping off a rural bus in Chile prematurely (definitely not a thing I have done), our transportation foibles always make great stories.
What are your most memorable travel mishaps? Leave me a comment below!
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