Coming up on the one-year mark of my time in Japan, and still going strong with no car (I made it though the winter! Yay!)
The thing about not having a car is that you're limited to walking/biking or taking public transportation such as buses and trains. I've seen documentaries that gush on and on about how wonderful and frequent and always punctual to the second the trains are in Japan, and after living near Osaka for five months and Northern Japan for eleven months, I've got a sneaky suspicion those documentary-makers never went outside of Tokyo (or another major city like Osaka) for their information.
Trains are usually pretty punctual, but I've seen them be late up here (and sometimes just... stop on the tracks for like five minutes?), and buses... man, I don't think I've taken a bus that was actually on time. But the biggest downside of public transportation up here, especially to the more rural areas, is the infrequency of the trains/buses. To get to two of my schools, the train that goes out there only runs nine times a day. And good luck getting anywhere at a time other than rush hour; if I miss the 12:15, I have to wait until 2:10 for the next train. Needless to say, I spend a lot of my school visit days sitting in train stations. And while he knew the reason, I think my former supervisor still might not have been too happy with that, based on the detailed description the new supervisor gave me about when I should go to the schools from my house or from the office. But, alas, when he tried to be helpful and show me which train to take, he discovered the same thing I had been saying all last year: there just aren't that many trains. The school in this town is, I believe, the furthest north you can be and still technically be part of Aomori city, but there're farms everywhere. The school itself is plopped in the middle of a bunch of rice paddies.
We found the bus schedules and worked out something that amounts to a little less doing-nothing-time, but every time, as I stand waiting for the bus with little old ladies who stare at me like "what the heck is this gaijin doing this far from the city???", I am reminded of why I dislike taking the bus in this particular fairly rural area: they are always late. Sometimes it's five minutes, sometimes twenty.
But when you don't have a car, what can ya do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ しょうがないなぁ。
At least the nature is pretty out there.
Oh god xD I'm so sorry this must really get on your nerves! My friend and I went to Tokyo and public transport there was no problem at all. We could take the train every time we liked and one came like every minute or so. Thing was, we got in our minds visiting the Fuji would be a fantastic idea... And one would think it has a great bus or train connection, yes? WRONG. We didn't had a lot on money on our hands, so the shinkansen was a no go. Even then we would have to take like two other trains and a bus, I think? Well, it was really hard to get to fujistaion. I think we spent more time waiting or traveling by bus and train then actually climbing the damn mountain.
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