Tokyo Subway

The best way to travel around Tokyo is undoubtedly the subway system. Several different lines crisscross and circle the city, making it easy to traverse the megapolis in a very short amount of time. On top of this, it's also ridiculously clean and many stations are adorned with art displays.

Your journey on the Tokyo metro starts at the ticket machines. Whether you're buying the single trip ticket, or the re-loadable Pasmo pass, the machines offer an intuitive, English menu for selecting the fare. We opted for the Pasmo cards so we could avoid waiting for the machines each time. Once you've paid, the task of determining your route and platform are also surprisingly straightforward. The various lines are color coded, and each station is numbered and labeled in English, making it easy to navigate your way around the city efficiently.

Though the stories of overpacked subway cars during rush hour are true, outside of the morning and evening rush you end up waiting a very short time for each train, and can often find a seat. The stereotypes of Japanese politeness are reinforced when you see people line up, let people exit the train first, and then carefully squeeze into their spot on the train. Our rides were fairly relaxed, and the system is so safe and efficient that we saw many children commuting by themselves. In fact, it's apparently common for children as young as 6 to commute on the subway and run errands by themselves - quite a contrast from the attitudes in North America.

When you've finally reached your destination station, you can usually find high quality restaurants within the station themselves. The most famous example is probably the Michelin starred sushi restaurant made famous by the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, but each station has a different variety of restaurants and stores (or even huge malls, in the case of stations like Shinjuku). Shimbashi Station (pictured here a few times) is much smaller than Shinjuku, but still had some gems to discover.