Yamanote-sen challenge

In which we go round and round... well, only one round really.

The Yamanote-sen is an iconic route in Tokyo, it’s a line that goes around the centre of Tokyo, connecting several major destinations: Tokyo station, Ueno, Ikebukuro, Shinjuku and Shibuya. Our family love a good train, and so on a day that fellow writer and parental G couldn’t come, the boys and I decided to ride the whole of the Yamanote-sen route. It’s circular, and we started in our ‘home’ station of Ebisu.

The rules were that we’d get off at each station with a three letter code (see notes below) and take a selfie, and that we’d have a break somewhere halfway.

A normal loop around takes just over an hour, I believe, and we figured we’d try and take selfies and get on the same train (which we managed 3 times) but also not rush it if we didn’t have to: there’s a train every 5 minutes or so.

The Yamanote-sen is a great line to use in Tokyo, as it connects many of the major areas of town. We went counter clock-wise from Ebisu towards Shinagawa.

At Shinagawa station, a foot selfie

Each station has signs like this to show you where you are (in Kanji, Hiragana and Western alphabet, and what stations are on either side)

Shimbashi station has an old steam train outside (and one of our favourite jingles: each station has its own jingle so you can recognise a station with your eyes closed)

We had a snack break at Ueno, where they have an excellent line up of gachapon machines, including this one which A, our youngest, got something from. He ended up wiht the N for the Naboku line.

Onwards and upwards! Well, ehm, onwards and forwards. This photo is at Ikebukuro, and the board shows you in what carriage to sit so you can optimise for where to get off to be close to the exits at each upcoming station. Nifty, eh?

We made it round in about 2.5 hours in total, and had fun doing it.