Explore everyday life in Japan
If you come to Japan, you will more than likely ride at least one train while you are here. It is hard not to. High-speed trains, express trains, and semi- express trains connect the cities of this country from north to south and east to west; and commuter trains and subway trains connect the various points of Japanese cities, from large to small.
While you are waiting in Japanese train stations, you will most likely see a range of locomotive enthusiasts—from small children with a platform pass, accompanied by a parent or a grandparent, all hoping to catch a glimpse of a specific bullet train to adult train buffs armed with thousand dollar cameras and various lenses, their tripods set up at a far edge of the train platform, awaiting the perfect shot of a rare sight-seeing train.
With so many trains, though, how will you know which one to ride? How will you know which platform to wait at, and how will you know which station to transfer at? Thankfully, all the information that you need to know can be found in one place, hyperdia.com.
This website is an amazing resource for anybody living in or traveling through Japan. All you have to do is type in the station you want to leave from, the station you want to go to, and the time you would like to depart. The search engine on this website will do everything else for you.
When typing in the station names, I recommend using the auto-type feature that the website offers. There are many similar station names in Japan, and if you don't type the name of your desired station correctly, you will not get accurate results.
If you are traveling in Japan, you may encounter one problem. You probably won’t be able to rely on your regular cellular service to give you internet access whenever you need it. If this is the case, what can you do?
Counter to what you might expect from Japan and its reputation for being a technological wonderland, Wi-Fi access remains rather limited across the country. There are hot spots, and many stations, airports, and coffee shops like Tully’s and Starbucks offer free Wi-Fi service, but when you are on the go, you will need something that is a little more reliable than random hot spots and Wi-Fi locations.
If you are the planner type, you can research a variety of train times on your phone from your hotel or the first Wi-Fi hotspot of your day and take a bunch of screenshots. However, if you are not the planner type, one thing you can do is buy a SIM card for your smartphone. SIM cards can be bought at any major electronics store in Japan (think Bic Camera or Yodobashi Camera). SIM cards cost approximately 2,500 yen per 1 Gig of data. The price is a little steep, but if you use your data conservatively, it will last you up to a week or more. For times when you are on the go and don’t have access to Wi-Fi, having a SIM card for your phone will be very useful.
Please be aware that if you do buy a SIM card, you will have to present your passport at the time of purchase. If you don't have your passport, or if you are unwilling to register your information, you will not be able to buy a SIM card.
For other options and explanations about accessing Wi-Fi in Japan, please refer to this article on Wa-Oh! Japan.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting daily updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.