Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Countdown to Tokyo - D minus 4

The Mass-Transit Boogie

I have to admit to being more than a bit nervous about getting from Nartia airport to my hotel in Tokyo. Narita is located some distance from Tokyo proper and this coupled with the fact that taxis are already prohibitively expensive in Tokyo pretty much negates the suck-it-up-and-take-a-cab option. Since I am not even entertaining the thought of renting a car this leaves me stuck having to deal with mass transit which for the distance I need to travel, means trains, and lets face being born and, for the most part, raised in Texas has left me woefully unprepared to deal with mass-transit. While I have faith that public transport in Tokyo is top-notch, despite Nartia itself having been a bit of a chaotic mess, I am concerned about my ability to navigate the system particularly since the Tokyo rail system is actually made up of four or five different companies.

Then I found the Tokyo Transfer Guide website.

This website is, as a friend says, the bomb dot com. It allows you to enter your origin and destination and then returns a list of route options for you complete with travel times and fares. You can sort your results by the number of transfers you have to make, the travel time, or the amount of the fare.

There are times I really love the Japanese. Everything with this trip so far has seemed pretty user-friendly.

Tags: Travel, Japan

No comments: