Somehow, the Narita Express always manages to evoke the same blend of feelings from me.
For the uninitiated, Narita Airport is about an hour outside of Tokyo. There are of course many different ways to get to and from the airport, all with their own merits and drawbacks, but really it comes down to “where in the city are you?”. Airport Limousine Bus is great for people who live in Minato, Chiyoda, Shinjuku, etc. For those who live in the Northeast, Keisei Skyliner is for you. And, for the Shinjuku/Ikebukuro/Omiya crowd, there is Narita Express.
The Narita Express runs alongside the Yamanote Line from Ikebukuro down to Shinagawa or so, and then comes back up underground to Tokyo Station, before heading East and following the Sobu line out of the city. Now, I am fully aware that no country in the world puts its most expensive real estate right along the train tracks, but somehow the Narita Express is especially drab. The thing is, you should be excited to be on the Narita Express! You are, after all, leaving for some sort of trip. Maybe you are going home to visit family. Perhaps you are off to seal some business deal. You could be going to rendezvous with a special someone in some tropical destination. Or, on the other hand, you could be heading the other direction, glad to be back in Tokyo, looking forward to seeing friends again after a couple weeks away, or at the very least, looking forward to your nice comfortable futon after traveling for hours.
But the Narita Express is so depressing that it completely prevents any of these emotions from surfacing. All you can think of is the drabness of the surrounding buildings, the harried commuters that you see in other trains and on other platforms, the farmers out in the field struggling to finish a day’s work. Even the coffee, served from a pushcart in the aisle, seems drab and boring and lifeless and depressing. Oh, you get a flash of trees and nature — maybe 5 or 10 minutes’ worth — but there’s no time to let that sink in, as by then you are already in the phase of planning out what you will need to do once you get to the airport.
I wish I knew what the answer was. A trip should not start out or finish up that way!
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January 7th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
The first time I came to Japan, I was taken by coach from Narita to Tokyo: the road route really is the pits. If I had been coming for the green tea and onsens, I might well have gone straight back to the airport ;).
If I’m not in a hurry and not carrying too much luggage, I prefer the Keisei line; it’s not that much prettier, but has a more local, “aha, I’m back in Japan at last” feel, and taking the Yamanote Line from Ueno southwards to Shibuya / Shinjuku during the daytime (when it’s quite civilised) is almost relaxing.