Use the right exit at a big station

In a large Japanese station, the name of the station is the least useful fact you can carry. Tokyo, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Kyoto, and Osaka are buildings with many exits, and the hotel sits near one of them. The others are a long walk with a suitcase, often in the rain, past signs you could have read before you went down the stairs.

Look the exit up the night before, from the hotel confirmation or a map. Write the words down. A screenshot fails when the phone is hunting for a signal in the basement. Copy the name rather than remembering a famous exit from a different station. Hachiko is Shibuya. It will not help you at Kyoto.

From the platform to that exit

Follow the signs for the exit you wrote, not the first stairs that show daylight. At Tokyo Station the Marunouchi side and the Yaesu side are different neighborhoods. At Shinjuku, east and west are different neighborhoods. Coming up on the wrong side can mean crossing the station again, which is a second arrival.

• On a shinkansen, the car number matches a mark on the platform. Wait there, and you step out beside the right stairs.
• Have the IC card in your hand before the gates. The search for the exit starts after you tap out.
• If you are meeting someone, name the exit and the time. “At the station” is a game.
• Allow time the timetable does not show. The timetable ends at the platform.
• A taxi rank lives at one exit. The first driveway you see may be where people get out, not where they get in.

The reserved seat you already hold is a place, not only a time. Car 8 is a spot on the platform. City trains and the shinkansen are the tickets. The exit is the last few minutes after the ticket has done its work.

Save

When you are lost anyway

Station staff will point. Show the hotel name, or the exit name on the note. Pointing is ordinary. A widening circle through the basement is also ordinary, and it is slower. Maps are posted at the gates. They are crowded, and they are still faster than pride.

If every exit is more than a short walk from the hotel, you are not failing. A taxi from the rank that faces the right way is a fair choice with bags or rain. Ask the driver to confirm the hotel before the door closes. A cab from the wrong side of Shinjuku can become a tour.

Do this once in each city, at the station you will actually use, and the later days are calmer. The morning you leave, the same exit is the way back to the train. You already know it. That is the whole skill.