When you travel by airplane local transportation is always an issue. If you are going to a small English town and staying at a bed and breakfast with a lot of hiking trails around, all you need is a pair of good shoes. In rural Japan where we will end up you need a car to get anywhere because of distances. In Tokyo it seems that you follow the old, “When in Rome...” mantra because most people here get around on trains.
In Tokyo there are trains everywhere and to everywhere. They run on time. The stations are clean with all kinds of maps and aids to reaching destinations. It is a system that works if you like that kind of thing. Tokyo is a big city in area as well as population. In Boston, where I lived for three years, the population was not large but the area was small so mass transit worked well. In Los Angeles you have an area larger than Tokyo with a large population but I can’t see mass transit working as it does in Japan. The Japanese seem to thrive on the situation.
In American subway systems you have masses of people crowding on the platforms. When the train pulls in it is a winner takes all kind of attitude. Not so in Tokyo. When you come into the station you see people quietly lined up and waiting patiently. They have arrows on the floor and labels for feet where the first person lines up. Others patiently line up behind. When the train pulls up they wait for people to get off and then file on without pushing or shoving. The Japanese are a very orderly bunch, at least on the metro.
Signs are usually in four languages: Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English. On some lines they make announcements in English. It is designed for large groups of foreign travelers.
You still have to do a lot of walking. At the end of the day we are feeling it. Or it could just be that I am getting old and am out of shape. Or it could be both.
homo unius libri
It all sounds like such a big adventure!
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