Comment by ayakang31415

I just came back from Tokyo and while I was there I stayed at a hotel in Shinjuku. I used the train station so frequently that I can now navigate easily within the station, but if you are not used to Japanese train system, it is not so friendly to foreigners. For example, in Korea, Seoul metro subway system is so well organized that you do not have multiple platforms in each subway station. In Tokyo, there are multiple platforms in each station and each of the platforms can have different subway lines. Sometimes, a particular subway line can change to a totally different line at some station, and sometimes if you are not paying attention you are now all of a sudden going in a totally different direction. Also, there are multiple railway companies operating in Tokyo, which means if you buy a paper ticket, you need to exit the subway and buy another (or rather different ticket) to transfer if you need to transfer to a different line managed by different railway company (fortunately I have an iPhone, so I added Suica card to my apple wallet and used it to pay for subway as well as transfers). I started to wonder the reason why Japan has such complicated subway system. Then again, I am not an expert in this area so there might be reasons for it which I am not aware of