The suburban train network is incredible there are entrances to stations virtually every 100 metres with vast shopping malls linking miles and miles of underground space. The ticket system works a treat, there are cards that swipe in a 100th of a second, and are smart enough to allow people to enter and exit the same turnstile. You can also buy cardboard tickets, these get sucked into the turnstiles at super speed and are returned to the traveller at the exit of the turnstile at lightning speed. If you don’t have enough money on the card at exit, simply go to the “fare adjustment machine’ and add a few more yen to your ticket. As for the trains they are super fast, these are just the city trains not the bullet trains. They pull into the station at 80 km and pull to a quick stop exactly at the right spot. There are markers on the platform to show which train doors will be where. They are so clean you could eat of the floor, not a mark scratch or graffiti to be seen, they are as good as new. We have been on a few sardine tin ones, where you can not move, one we couldn’t fit on and waited for the next. Some even split at a station and the front carrages head one way and the back head another.
