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Machines to buy train/subway tickets. Ignore the systems that we Italians / Europeans are
accustomed to. The ticket is here for km and area, so you must first look at the map above the machines and see how many areas you will need to travel, so you know you will have to spend a lot of yen from point A to point B, so when typing the typology You will have to do more than choosing that price. The tickets are very small, remember those of the metro in Paris with the difference that at the exit when you re-enter the ticket this will remain in the door. -
Ordered queue to take public transportation. When we are usually waiting for a train we usually do it without a precise rule, in fact, they are used to trying to overcome/overcome the people we have next to us to get the better place. In some situations it is as if you were in the starting place before a relay, ready to shoot faster than others. Here, in Japan, the queue to wait and those for the exit are marked by arrows painted on the floor so that people come on one side and go out of the other, all without stress or anxiety. This does not mean that Japanese trains are not a stressful place. After all, they are unknown all over the world to be among the crowds but this can be done very little and it can be traced back to one reason: most of them do not use ‘Car but only public transport! Are we really in Asia ?!
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Items indicating bus / metro / train stops. There are things left in memory, and one of these is the memory of bus trips on the streets of Kyoto. Shortly after you get on the bus you start hearing a cantilena out of the driver’s mouth will be hard to understand but concentrating well you will realize that the driver every time someone comes down from the bus will repeat the following sentence: Arigatou Goizamasu but will do it by dragging and twisting a lot , If you join this singing that you will hear every 2 minutes with the voice announcing from the megaphone all the stops, all in a bus often full of people, you can imagine how much the atmosphere is not very relaxing.
Trains are also constantly announced, a feature very useful for tourists as well, and for those who do not read the Japanese and maybe only know the sound of their stop, but it’s curious as there is music accompanying that changes to second Of stops. For example, if you are going to travel in the direction of DisneyWorld Tokyo, the music will be different for this stop than the previous and the next.
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Silence on public transport. In Northern Europe for some years now there are train carriages where it is forbidden to speak or that are intended for those who want to stay calm and silent, is a praise for tranquility. In Japan, there are no carriages with this type of divisions, because even though the number of people tends to cause as little chaos as possible, this does not mean that they will not speak or laugh but everything will be done with high voices. I have to admit that sometimes it was disarming all that silence in a carriage full of people, it seemed like a race in silence and it was almost embarrassing to say something!
Once, when I got back home, I was sitting next to a guy who was listening to a comedy program but was sleeping. The volume was so high that many people started looking at the boy, but nobody thought of telling him anything except a gentleman who scolded him before going down. It was amazing the boy’s embarrassed and shameful reaction that he did not realize he did not fit the earphones well and did not imagine that he was disturbed and that he did not stop to apologize!
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Urban Mobility. Most Japanese use public transport and there are few who use the car. The same tour guides strongly advise not to hire a car in Japan and especially in big cities.
Imagine a big city, it is also imagined that there is a lot of traffic and chaos caused by cars, but instead, there is no sense of traffic typical of big cities (see Sydney!), Here are the walking people who take the streets and Cross the streets. An incredible amount of people walking through the streets and moving by public transport, that’s why the latter is always overwhelmed by people.
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Gloves of taxi drivers. The first time I took the taxi to Japan I was in Kyoto. We had to go back to the hotel and so we decided to return by taxi, the more or less the taxi call system is similar to other parts of the world with the only difference that we do not want to call it, taxis have a sign on the roof Which is illuminated if the taxi is free!
As soon as I came I noticed that the taxi driver was wearing a pair of white gloves, I started to wonder why, but the fact that it was simply his uniform did not convince me because I had noticed the same thing even to bus drivers. Thanks to the linguistic mediation of my ex-boyfriend I discovered, indeed, we found out that the taxi drivers are wearing gloves pads to show their cleansing. Through the glove (which obviously is not possible in the same way with your naked hand) you can recognize a clean hand by one that is not it! It seems that the Japanese think about everything!
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The immensity of Tokyo. The Tokyo metro map is one of the most absurd and complicated things I’ve ever seen. I traveled so much, even in big cities but I never saw such a big city, it impressed me even more than Bangkok, which in fact is smaller than 600 km2! It’s impressive its size and its spaces and you can imagine what’s needed to cross the city! I still remember the disoriented faces of tourists trying to understand something and get out of the inevitable stalemate they were in; In those moments I felt fortunate that I was traveling with a Japanese and that I could take some time to understand something.
The transport network is managed by its various companies, and this factor combined with long distances makes it very time consuming to move from one network to another, and it is very easy to get lost especially by not knowing the language.
Despite this immensity and these difficulties, I decided to take the opportunity (not without fear) to take the public transport on its own. My boyfriend and I lived in Honda in Shiba prefecture and to get to the center of that country we had to take more than one means, so make changes, it took more or less two hours to get into town. The disarming thing is that it is difficult to realize, especially if it is evening, when it comes out and/or enters the city, because there is almost no distinction between suburban and suburban areas, everything looks the same, it is absurd but you understand that you are Entering the city because at some point you go over a river.
I had a paper sheet where I had pinned the path, but I also counted on my instincts and my memory, after all, I had already traveled that route several times. The first part of the journey went smooth, but when I had to take another train, I checked only the line and the line color because at that moment the texts on the display were only in Japanese and so let me in the carriage and did the thing Simplest and oldest in the world: ask for a confirmation! And so I asked a woman pointing my destination with my finger, she obviously did not understand anything and could not answer, she was trying but without results, she just told me “next” and so I tried to reassure me, in the end why Had to go wrong ?! The train departs and with the passing of stops the lady continues to look at me with her worried face .. I soon realized that the lady was worried about me, because I was the wrong train !! The track was right, the direction and the destination too, but unfortunately I chose the line that did not foresee all stops !!! After a moment of panic, I reactivated my brain and realized that the only way was to get off at a point where the two lines met so to make a change. And so I did, I got off that train and waited for the next one and the funny thing is that on this one Japanese girl sitting next to me was able to speak a stunted English! At that moment, I confirmed that failing to communicate the same language or common language is a limit. There should be a common language (and I’m not referring to English) with which all people can understand, communicate and express their emotions.