Collins Dictionaries - Collins Gem

Places such as Kyoto have tourist day passes and bus route maps in English, which you can obtain at a bus station. Local buses usually board from the rear door, but if your journey is not covered by a flat fee you may need to pick up a numbered ticket. A board at the front of the bus displays the fares, based on the numbers. You will need to know your destination in Japanese characters. Some buses board from the front door and require you to pay as you enter. Tickets for long/middle distance coach trips, as well as express buses, are usually sold at the coach counter or ticketing machine.

Public transport is free for up to two children under 6 when travelling with a paying adult. An elementary school pupil pays half price (aged between 7 and 12). Junior high (13 to 15) and senior high (16 to 18) school students are often given discounts too.

Metro

The Japanese metro and train services are clean, safe and run on time. You can find metro systems in the Tokyo area, as well as Sapporo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, and several other cities. You can either purchase a pre-paid card or an ordinary ticket from the ticketing machine. Silver seats are for elderly people or people with difficulties. Mobile phones need to be on silent and you must not talk in the carriage. In major cities, the rush hour crush can be really bad (between 7 and 9 am and 5 and 8 pm). Some trains have women-only carriages. The Japanese metro system is very similar to the one in London. Suikais like the Oyster card. The first thing you must do is obtain a metro map which indicates all the lines and stops.

Train

You will find Midori no madoguchi(literally ‘Green Ticket Window’) in major train stations, where you can buy tickets and make seat bookings. You need to pay a supplement in order to use an express train. There are seven lines of Shinkansen, high-speed (bullet) train, and they serve areas from Hokkaido to Kyushu. It is expensive to travel around Japan using the Shinkansen, so a JR Pass could save you money. With this pass, you can cover a considerable distance around Japan. Details can be found at www.japanrailpass.net.

You can buy a Japan Rail Pass (JR Pass) Exchange Order in your own country, which needs to be exchanged for the Japan Rail Pass itself when you get to Japan. The stations where you can exchange the Order are shown on the back.