- How to ride the train subway in Shinkansen in Tokyo.
Many people when they're planning a trip to Tokyo
are intimidated by looking
at the public transportation system.
The route networks are quite complicated,
but actually, when you know how to ride,
it's quite simple.
And in this video, I'll break it down for you
and tell you everything you need to know
to successfully navigate the train,
subway, and Shinkansen network in Tokyo.
So I'm gonna break this video up into three simple areas.
One, just things you need to know about
the public transportation system in Tokyo in general.
Two, how to buy tickets, and three, what to do
when you're actually riding the train,
or finding the train, or finding your tracks
and getting on it.
First, we'll talk about things you need to know
about the public transportation system in general.
The first thing to know is that the public
transportation in Tokyo is not just run by one company,
so there's not one ticket that you can buy
that works on all of them.
The main, above ground trains are run by JR.
There's a a famous line called the Yamanote line.
It's a loop that kind of runs around Tokyo.
That's run by the Japan Railway's
National Railway Company.
The subways are run by private companies.
There's Toei, Odakyu, Keikyu,
these are all private companies that operate
public transportation in Tokyo.
So when you look at maps of lines or maps
of transportation, if you're in a JR train station,
you'll be looking at the JR train map.
If you are in a subway station, you'll be looking
at the subway map, so it's important to either
have a combined map that shows you
all of the routes, which those can be really complicated,
or in today's modern day and age, you can use
some route planning applications.
A really popular one that I like,
they have a website and also a phone app
is called Hyperdia.
If you use Hyperdia, you can put in your starting station
and your ending station and it will give you
suggested routes that'll tell you where to start,
where to transfer, and how much the tickets cost.
So I suggest you do that before you're going someplace
while you still have internet access.
If you have a mobile device, you can use Hyperdia
and your mobile device, or you can use Google Maps
as well that will give you the suggested routes.
Okay, now let's talk about getting tickets
to ride public transportation.
A lot of people ask me the question, should they get
a JR pass when they're coming to Japan
and it sort of depends.
It depends how far you're gonna go.
So you're starting in Tokyo and you're going
to Kyoto, and then you're gonna come back to Tokyo,
then it's worth it to get the JR pass because the price
from the roundtrip Shinkansen, the bullet train,
will exceed the price of the pass, and therefore,
you'll get some value.
If all you're doing is staying in Tokyo,
then don't buy a JR pass because you won't make enough
money back on just the fares in Tokyo.
And frankly, in Tokyo, most of the transportation
you'll probably be doing is not just on the JR line
because the JR passes are only good on JR trains.
It means they're not good on the subway,
the Keikyu line, the Odakyu line, and a lot
of the major transportation systems in Tokyo.
If you are considering buying a JR pass, just know there's
a lot of different ones.
Actually on this trip that I'm doing this video on,
we went to Kanazawa and so we bought
the Hokuriku Arch Pass.
When you buy these passes, they typically will mail you
something in the US that you'll then exchange when
you come to Japan.
It'll have a little thing like this, they'll say
the dates that it's valid.
This one's valid for seven days and then it has
a little map inside that says what particular trains
and routes it's valid on.
If you are using a JR pass and you're getting on JR trains,
the way you use it, you can't put it in any
of the ticket machines or the wickets.
Instead, you'll have to go up to a manned booth
and you basically hold this up and show
the attendant that's there.
They'll nod and then you just walk on through.
If you are riding the Shinkansen, which is the bullet
train with the JR pass, then I would advise you to get
reserved seat tickets.
You can go to any Shinkansen ticket office.
You just bring your pass, you tell them what Shinkansen
train you want to go on, or if you don't even know that,
you tell them what city you want to go to and then
they'll give you reserved seat tickets so that way
you have a seat on the bullet train that you're riding on.
Okay, so what if you're not getting a JR pass?
And I'll say about half the time I come to Tokyo,
I don't get a JR pass.
Then are you buying individual tickets to ride the train?
I would actually not advise that because the tickets
are really complicated.
Because there are so many different companies and fares,
it's really hard to buy the right ticket
for your train and where you're going.
If you did want to do that, here's what
a fare map looks like.
This is the fare map from Tokyo Station
and it's essentially distance based, so if you were
buying a single ticket, you would look at this map,
you would see the price at the station that you're
going to and then you would go up to a ticket machine.
At the ticket machine, it would have a number of different
prices for tickets.
You would select the price of the ticket,
you would then select how many people are riding.
Those are buttons over on the left.
You would then insert your money and it would spit out
the appropriate number of tickets.
You would then take that ticket, insert it into
the ticket gate, pick it up when you go out
the ticket gate, and keep that ticket with you
because you're gonna need that ticket
when you exist the train on the other side.
What I really advise though, is not using
those individual tickets, but I advise getting
a Suica card.
This is what everybody who lives in Tokyo uses
and the Suica cards are essentially stored value cards.
There are FID cards.
They don't give you any discount on riding the trains,
but they make it that you can essentially load
1,000 yen at a time to this card and then when you
go through, you just tap it on this little blue IC circle
when you go through the wickets into the train station.
It tells you how much money you have left on the card,
and then when you exit the other side,
you tap this again.
If you're transferring from one train company
to another train company, say you're transferring
from the JR line to the Odakyu line,
then you tap this as you go into the JR line,
you'd ride the JR train to the station you're going to,
you get off, there'd be a transfer gate,
you tap this again into the Odakyu line,
and then you tap this again when you exit.
It is so much easier.
These cost 500 yen for the card, which is about $5
and then you can add value to it, but the money
that you save in time of not having to buy tickets,
not having to wait in line, not having to figure out
your fares is well worth it.
So go buy a Suica card.
Okay, so now that you've either got your Suica card,
your individual ticket, or your pass of some sort,
then you go through the gate in the station
and now you need to find where your train is.
And in some of the train stations, it can be
a little intimidating.
If you're in Tokyo Station or Shinjuku Station,
these are two of the biggest train stations in the world
that have some of the most passengers that pass through
them every day.
Shinjuku Station has something like 16 different lines
that go through it and actually, you can see here
on the Shinjuku map, the nice thing about them
is they color code all of the lines and so you can look
for the line that you're taking like the Chuo main line
will be orange and if you get on that line
at Shinjuku Station, it'll be orange.
If you take it to Tokyo Station, it'll be orange.
When you get back to Tokyo, you just need to get on
the orange tracks, but you have to know
what direction you're heading.
They don't really say like, east or west.
They tell you what the destination is.
So if you're going to Tokyo Station from Shinjuku,
you'd look on the platforms for the Chuo line
to Tokyo Station in that direction.
And if you really can't find your track,
just ask one of the people who work in the train station.
Sometimes the English of the train staff isn't the best,
but they will absolutely do their best to try
and help you and they'll really get you
to where you're going, so if you can't
find something, just ask.
And if you look lost enough, often the Japanese people
in the train station, they'll come up to you
and ask if they can help you get someplace
if you're looking particularly distressed.
Okay, so now that you found your track,
it's time to get on the train, or make sure you get on
the right train.
Many of these tracks in Japan, there are trains
that arrive every couple of minutes.
So if you know that your train leaves at 12:55
and there is a train on the track you're on
departing at 12:53, that is not the same train.
That is a train that is going someplace else.
The Yamanote line departs, I think, every two minutes
at peak rush hour.
It's pretty crazy.
Something else to know about taking the trains
is there are different classes of service.
So there'll be local trains, rapid trains,
express trains, limited express trains.
They have a lot of different terms for these trains.
Basically, the local train stops at every station,
the express, rapid express, things like that,
only stop every so many stations.
So if you're going to a station on the line,
you can look at the maps along that line
that are in the station and they'll show you
the different classes of service and which stations
they stop at.
They'll often color code them on the light up boards
so that you can see like, if it's red,
then it's usually an express train.
Now that you find your platform, you find your train,
you're in the right place and you know which one
you're gonna get on, now it's time to line up.
People in Japan politely line up at these little markers
that are in the train floor, and they typically
make two lines to wait for the train.
They wait patiently.
When the train arrives, the doors open,
let everybody get out, and then just follow
the group of people onto the train.
When you are on the train, there's a certain etiquette
to being on the train.
There are typically seats that are on the sides
of the subway or the train.
If there are elderly people, please let them
use their seats.
If you are elderly, then go ahead and use those seats.
If you're elderly, people will often get up for you
so that you can use them.
There's often also a particular reserved area
on the side just for elderly and disabled,
so if you're not elderly and disabled,
please don't sit in that area.
There will also be handholds to hold on in the train.
On those handholds, if you are standing, you don't just
stand in any which direction.
You stand facing the people that are sitting in front
of you, so make sure you're facing them and not
putting your behind in somebody's face.
They consider that to be very, very rude.
When you're on the train and you're trying
to figure out what stop you are going to
or what stop you're at, or what stop you're getting
off at, many of the major railways in Tokyo actually
have these TV monitors that'll show you
the route the train's going, what the next stop is,
how many minutes to go.
It'll be in Japanese and English and so when you're on,
say, the Yamanote line, all of the trains on that line
have this particular feature, which is really nice.
If you're on the subway or some of the other line,
sometimes they don't have those train screens.
In that case, know how many stops you're going
and you can count.
One of the nice things about the subway
is that all of the subway stations, in addition
to having names, also have a letter and number
associated to them.
So a stop on the Ginza line will have the letter G
and then a number, so like, G6.
And a stop on the Marunouchi line will have a letter M
and then a number, say, M4.
And so you can just look and see
what stop you're getting off at,
G7, G8, G9.
Something worthwhile to know is that multiple stops
on the subway can have multiple different letters
and numbers and one of the stops actually has like,
five letters and numbers because there are five different
subway lines that go through there.
And now that you're on the train,
all you have to do (laughs) is get off at the right station.
After you've gotten off at the right station,
either tap your Suica card to get out,
put your little ticket in the wicket to leave,
or show your rail pass to exit.
There's just a final couple notes I want to make.
A lot of people say they're worried about coming to Tokyo
because there's like, too many people on the train cars.
They've seen these things where people people
actually like, get pushed into the train cars.
Yes, at rush hour the trains are really busy.
Rush hour is typically seven to nine in the morning,
or 7:30 to 9:30 coming into Tokyo and then leaving,
it's around five to 7:00 p.m.
If you don't want to get mushed into a train,
then you might want to avoid those particular travel times.
If you're a tourist, then that's pretty easy.
Just sleep in, have breakfast, and after breakfast,
around 9:30, mosey on out, you'll be fine.
Have dinner someplace around six o'clock and after dinner,
you'll be after the rush hour crowds as well.
If you do find yourself in one of those big mobs
in the train cars and you're kind of just going
with the flow, just kind of getting mushed in the car
and you'll be like this.
And when you get to a stop,
just kind of shimmy your way.
You'll kind of have to push your way a little bit,
but you'll be okay, you'll be able to get out.
If you can't get out, then get off at the next stop.
There'll be another train in two minutes
that'll go back the way you want to.
Now if you're a woman riding at rush hour,
good news for you.
On many of the trains in Tokyo, there are actually
special women only cars, so you can look for these
pink labels that'll say women only.
They'll give you certain times and those are cars
that women can go into.
If you're a man, then don't go into the women only car
when it's women only time.
They will look at you awfully, awfully strange.
All right, well thanks for watching.
I hope this video will be helpful to you
on your trip to Tokyo.
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