When I first had been in Japan I went by shinkansen together with my than aquaintance und now wife from Tokyo to Kioto. I than was told that it would be cheaper not to buy at JR. So we had an cheap ticket including one drinke during th journey. When we returned to Tokyo we wnted to make a stop in Odawara. It turned out that the ticket to Odawara was more expensive than to Tokyo (with one drink!), I suggested to buy the ticket for Tokyo and leave at Odawara, as it would work in Germany, but because one has to show the ticket when leaving the platform, my than aquaintance told me, it would be impossible.

Hanspeter

Ah, so simple! I wish I had thought of constructing that phrase while I was there. For traveling around Tokyo - I believe the larger stations (i.e. Tokyo, Shinjuku, Ueno) were typically denoted in larger text and bold font on the maps. So, once you figure out those on the rail map, it’s easier to interpolate which stop your desired destination is located.

Another tool that can come in handy for planning routes to take to other cities are the online route timetables provided by 3rd party sites such as Hyperdia and Jorudan.

Hyperdia -http://grace.hyperdia.com/cgi-english/hyperWeb.cgi

Jorudan - http://www.jorudan.co.jp/english/norikae/

The first time I took a local train, the map was in Kanji only. The problem was that my English map didn’t have kanji and was drawn differently. I do like a challenge However most of the maps are in English & Kanji, making it much easier.

I’ve now worked through all the survival & beginner lessons to date and now have no excuses for not going back and learning all the vocab. Thanks everyone for the hard work & making the lessons so much fun.

Myself and the wife were planning a day trip from Matsue to Izumo-taisha. We decided to hop on the sleeper express coming out from Tokyo, which arrived at the station rather early. It being an unfavourable hour of the day, and with the weeks on the rails wearing our brains down, we hopped on, popped shoes off, and prepared to steal a nap in one of the berths.

About five minutes into the journey, my wife grabs me, her face swollen with panic, and in half English/half Japanese says to me: ‘Did you take my bag?’

‘Uh, no.’

We search up and down the berth. Probably just dropped it somewhere. We search again. Genuine horror is setting in.

‘What did you have in there?’

Everything, of course. All of her travel money, her Japanese passport (which at the time sold for about $US8,000 to North Koreans on the black market), and our plane tickets.

I was totally gutted. Losing all that money . . . I mean, she’s Japanese, cash society, they always have loads of cash in their pockets, LOADS of it. But money can be regained. Ok, air tickets, that’s a pain. The passport? That’s horror. That’s beurocracy. That’s post 9-11 security checkpoints.

My wife races up to the conductor’s carriage, bangs away . . . older fella, white gloves and all. Tells him what happened. He was incredibly kind. Radios Matsue station. Tells them to be on a lookout for the bag (they immediately dispatched people to go look.)

We wait for a horrific twenty minutes. Do we get off at the next station and go back? What do we do?

The conductor tracked us down and said, ‘What does your bag look like?’

My wife, eyes blurry with tears, blurts out a phrase that has become one of the great quotes of our marriges, “Moomin no Sunafukin!” She said it while weeping. (Huge Moomin fan: I bought her a little rucksack with the cartoon on it while visiting relatives in Sweden.)

“Atta,” he says. Yeah, someone had actually turned it in. Took it right down to the ticket office. Money, passport, tickets, sunglasses, the whole lot was there. You could hear the applause over the phone.

Everything. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I may be a romantic, I may be a sentimentalist, but I will tell you this: they do things differently in Japan.

They kindly agreed to hold onto the bag so that we would enjoy our day at the shrine.

I remember the man’s name plate. As much as I have whinged about JR, I wrote a huge letter of praise about this instance as soon as we got home.

Because, had this been in Vancouver (or inset orther city there), we would have been b***acksed.

Daniel B-san, I wasn’t sleeping. I went to see 2 movies and swiming today. What a day off. Is Japan plays Superman over there? I enjoyed a lot… What a man….

I haven’t check the lesson for today. I’m taking day off from everything….no homework please.

Mata ne!

This is a very helpful lesson! The macro info was interesting and the micro details are super helpful. Domo arigato gozaimashita!

Richado
San Francisco, CA

Rush hour traffic?!? Are you guys for real?!? You don’t have to drive!!! I would gladly trade my car in to ride the trains all the time!!

Oh, I love the German trains, got spoiled using them for my 2 week vacation. Even learned some German while I was there.

Hi, this survival series is wonderful wonderful. sugoidesune!
it’ll be very helpful for my next trip to japan.
just one suggestion here regarding the rail series. do you advise to use the pasmo or suica card? that way we won’t need to calculate the fares. i’m not sure it’ll be cheaper or more expensive. but it should be much more convenient right?

Last time I was in Japan, I bought a Pasmo card. It was very convenient. At least it was convenient until it failed to let me out of a station in Tokyo. It had at least 二〇〇〇 on it so I was puzzled. I tried to charge it but the machine would not help me. So I went to the station agent and had a terrible time trying to communicate with them the problem. I just could not figure out how to say:
PASMO カード will not open the gates. PASMO カード is broken. Please replace it.

First they had no idea what I wanted. Then they tried to refund the card. Then they finally figured it out, reissued another card, and put an extra 二〇〇〇 on it for my trouble.

一さん、

When I use the PASMO card, I feel a little bit uneasy by thinking what if the gate is closed. But, this card is very useful. I hope that you will not have any problem when you use it next time.

“What gave you trouble”? would be “dou shimashita ka?” in Japanese.