Confessions of an Author

Tokyo Underground Trains 1 Using the Tokyo Underground Using the underground system in Tokyo is easy – even I managed to do it, and it’s much cheaper and faster than using taxis. It is the cleanest underground system I’ve ever encountered, and although it’s sensible to keep valuables hidden, I saw local people with phones shoved into back pockets and purses at the top of bags, so I’m guessing there is very little crime. It’s much easier if there are two of you, as stations have lots of signs, and it takes time to read them all. One of you can check for arrows, showing which side you are meant to walk/queue/wait, and the other can read the less important ones about which platform and trains you need. First of all, find a map, and work out which station you want to visit. I can’t read Japanese, but all the signs were also in English, so it wasn’t a problem. The map is topological, like the London underground (so the stations are shown in the right order, but the distances...