Transportation in Japan

There are various ways to travel around Japan. To travelers, it is rather confusing to find their ways through all the available transportation options since many of them are interconnected and their stations are all in the same place. After being here in Tokyo for five days, we finally got some sense out of the public train/subway transportation. Of course, we paid much tuition fee along the way. For example, on the first day, we spent 1450 yens (~US$14.00) to go from Shinjuku to Tokyo station because we hopped on the express JR train. If we hopped on the Tokyo metro instead (which we originally intended to), the cost would have been 190 yens. A whopping 10x difference. Tokyo metro and Toei Line have been our best friends. If we wanted to go slightly further, but not willing to pay the extra $$$, we would hop on the local JR trains. Though, we really had to watch out which platform we went to, because if we went on a wrong one, we would have to pay the price difference. Going further distance, shinkansen is the best. It is extremely quick and comfortable.

Well, now that we have picked up the Japan transportation maneuvering skills, it is time to go struggle with the Taiwan ones :)