- 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. If you enjoyed this
video, please subscribe for more videos like it and
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