Another random thing about the train system: there are women-only cars. I didn't realize this until I had already boarded and (as a man) I was absolutely mortified.
A few years ago, I was lost in Ikebukuro trying to find the Metro station. I had already walked over half an hour but only found the JR stations. I asked one of the security guards “Tokyo metro eki…. Doko??” And even with my absurdly broken Japanese, I not only got directions in Japanese back to me, but the guard walked with me until the station was in sight to make sure I understood and could get to it.
You 100% don’t need English to get around, and, yeah, it’s going to be awkward to talk to someone in a language you don’t speak, but Japanese people will go extremely out of their way to help you if you make even the smallest gesture of trying. The little exchange above is only one of several I had throughout the country, and every time I made a small bit of effort, I got the world moved for me.
> I got the world moved for me
I'm somewhat uncomfortable with these characterisations of Japan and the Japanese people. Yes, Japanese people can be helpful to (obvious) visitors but with more and more people visiting Japan visitors shouldn't expect this to keep being the case, nor do visitors necessarily deserve this treatment. It probably will hold true but I don't think we should encourage an entitled attitude of "I'm a visitor, therefore the always helpful Japanese people will help me out of any tricky situations I get into while visiting their country".
Sorry that the Japanese people are generally far more courteous than anyone else I’ve met when tourists are in need of help and make an effort to get help in their language. Apparently, pointing out that every person I’ve encountered has been great to visitors is a bad thing or something.
If someone is going to be a tourist in a foreign place, would you prefer they have a breakdown in the middle of the city because they should expect the locals to be assholes that never help people who don’t speak Japanese out? God forbid someone try and interact with a local, that’s apparently entitled behavior now. What even is this take?
No, visitors should not rely on locals to help them out, but you also have no proof that the kindness shown will go away anytime soon. It’s not like tourism hasn’t been booming for the past few decades and nothing has happened. What makes you think something will suddenly change?
You are setting an expectation.
“Hey, I haven’t met your wife/husband yet, but if they’re anything like you, they must be a quality person, and can’t wait for you to introduce me to them!” — “Oh, yeah. I mean, they’re definitely a human being, just like me, if that’s what you mean. And they, like… eat, drink, sleep — all the usual human being things, you know.”
Sounds like a bleak way to relate to others, downplaying your feelings out of fear that someone will irrationally believe they are entitled to similar experiences with said person.
Maybe we should expect people to not feel entitled, instead of desiring that people would bottle up how they feel.
Sorry not sorry that my experiences irritate you so much.
And, once again: What, exactly, would you prefer? A gaijin in the middle of Kyoto wailing about not being able to get back to their hostel because they’re too scared to approach a local? That person never even experiencing Japan because they’re too scared they’re going to get lost and be beaten to death by the horrible locals?
Signs on the tracks tell you what station you're at, what the previous station was and what the next station will be.
Every exit has a number and signs on the walls and ceilings tell you which way you need to walk to get to your destination or transfer.
At the gates there are always maps of the area on the walls to lookup where to go if you don't have a smartphone.
I've been all over the world and I can't think of another transit system that has all of those features. Others are always missing one or more.
As for the person below that mentioned they got help in Ikebukuro station, it's great they got help, but I suspect in their panic they didn't notice all the signs. There is no exit from the JR lines that does not have clear signage to every other line (tobu, seibu Ikebukuro, fukutoshinsen, Marunouchi, Yurakucho, ...)
Several times I have come across a station (like Shinjuku) where I can see the same sign for the same train line placed in 4 or 5 different areas (all visible at once) all pointing in different directions.
Similarly there's at least 3 perpendicular corridors connecting the JR tracks themselves so the exit to each corridor (of which there are 2 each so 6 exits) will all be labeled as leading to the other tracks because all of them actually do lead to the other tracks.
As for walking, you don't need to walk _everywhere_ but it really is cool to spend a few hours like OP said and just walk around your hotels neighborhood or other places.
I usually stay in Higashi Shinjuku when I visit, and if I hadn't done that I wouldn't have known about this really quiet residential area that leads to a nice quiet park. Or the little Korea town neighborhood that's about a twenty minute walk away.
The buildings are numbered in the order they were built :P
The Tokyo subway was never difficult to navigate. But as someone who has recently returned from a trip to Japan for the first time since COVID I can tell you they've made substantial improvements since (mostly as a result of the run up to the Olympics).
There is now substantially more English signage on the subway than ever before. The ticket machines even now have extensive English language menus.
Suica is great with how you can reload it from your US credit card, and works in many places besides just transit stations. It saved me several ATM runs last time I was there.
Tokyo is not really a big city like London, New York or Paris. It is like a bunch of smaller cities clumped together. In fact administratively, Tokyo is a prefecture, not a city.
So sure, it is huge, but you can random walk one of the "wards" like you would a smaller city. You can also walk between wards, but expect to walk a lot, and you are unlikely to make it your primary way of moving around, but I still recommend you do it at least once. Biking is also common (note: biking is done on the sidewalk there).
The Tokyo subway system is massive but not challenging. Everything is surprisingly systematic and consistent (unlike NYC's MTA which is legacy with express/non-express trains and cars with doors that don't open in certain stations) and with Google Maps, I had no problems getting anywhere with no backtracking. Announcements and notices are bilingual Japanese/English. Staff don't speak English but I've never had to speak to anyone -- the system is just so intuitive. In most subway systems around the world, you really almost never have to speak to anyone. Don't have Google Maps? Look at the subway map. It's big, but all you have to do is locate your destination and know where you are -- easy. The Japanese are great at creating intuitive visuals.
The female-only cars are common around the world (Rio has them too), not sure why it is a cause for mortification. There's a reason why they exist, and that reason exists in North America too.
Tokyo is big but extremely navigable for a foreigner.
Trains stations were mostly fine in comparison.
I have no clue how anybody could navigate that city without something like Google Maps.
There are certain cities that have made their women-only cars 24/7. More or less because the level of traffic they experience doesn't really make the loss of 1 car to 50% of the population any real detriment.