The great commutation experiment
The great commutation experiment
On board for 125 minutes (Traveling for 137 minutes)
One-way fare:1,470 yen Distance:105.0 km
140 minutes starting at 620 AM sounds sadly unmanageable for me.
Finally the bus. There is a highway bus between Gotemba and Shinjuku. The second last stop is 1.7 Kilometers from my office. I initially thought I could walk from Ikijiriohashi but now think that in the winter cold or summer heat or spring and fall rains..... I will just take the train.
The bus departs 0655 and gets to Ikijiriohashi at 810, a quick trip on the train, although it will be a very crowded train it will get me to the office around 830. The cost is 1540 yen and you always get a seat, unfortunately the biggest problem with the bus is if the bus is late they do not give out "inconvenience tickets" which tell your employer you were late due to the bus/train/plane ect, and when your company is very aggressive about docking pay for lateness it could get expensive.
For this experiment I will try to check for my own sanity, how difficult it would be to go to work in Tokyo from Gotemba. For day 1 I will try the bus, then the regular commuter line, then finally the Shinkansen to see which is fastest, easiest and cheapest. I think in order to stay under budget and still make it back every night it will take some usage of a combination of the bus and other routes. Stay tuned the next couple of days to see what the results and side effects are.
Pay cuts suck but they are better than loosing your job. Recent changes at work and home, if you do not know, number 3 is on the way, have forced us to rethink our financial situation. For reasons unknown to any rational thinking adult I am considering commuting to work (Tokyo) from home in Gotemba. It is a 2 hour trip one way.
If you ask Satomi she will tell you that "Lots of people do it." I have not seen lots of people doing it as a matter of fact when I asked how much my company would pay for commuting from Gotemba the HR women all looked at me like I was holding my own bloody head in my hands and making it speak through some sort of devilish sorcery. When the shock wore off they started laughing and saying we will pay for what ever the "cheapest cost is to commute". This will most likely be JR line from Gotemba to Matsuda then Odakyu to Shimokitazawa to Shibuya.
Here is a break down of what that would look like. On board for 125 minutes (Traveling for 137 minutes)
One-way fare:1,470 yen Distance:105.0 km
Iwanami
06:22am
07:08am
[46min.] 35.1km 650yen
Matsuda/Shin-Matsuda
Odakyu Line
Express 07:16am
08:28am
[72min.] 66.9km 700yen
Shimokitazawa
Keio-Inokashira Line 08:32am
08:39am
[7min.] 3.0km 120yen
Shibuya
140 minutes starting at 620 AM sounds sadly unmanageable for me.
The second option is to take Shinkansen and is probably what people think when think of traveling to work by train.
I do not dispute the fact that it would be faster and probably more comfortable, but it is almost 3 x the cost. They have commuter passes for that but I am afraid that it would still be such a huge chunk of change each month that it would just be cheaper to live in Tokyo.
On board for 84 minutes (Traveling for 107 minutes)
One-way fare:4,910 yen Distance:141.5 km
Iwanami
Gotemba Line 05/04/2010
06:48am
07:07am
[19min.] 14.9km 2520yen
Numazu
Tokaido Line(JR Tokai) 07:10am
07:16am
[6min.] 5.5km
Mishima
Kodama No.704 07:22am
08:09am
[47min.] 113.9km Reserved 2390yen
Shinagawa
Yamanote Line 08:23am
08:35am
[12min.] 7.2km
Shibuya
Finally the bus. There is a highway bus between Gotemba and Shinjuku. The second last stop is 1.7 Kilometers from my office. I initially thought I could walk from Ikijiriohashi but now think that in the winter cold or summer heat or spring and fall rains..... I will just take the train.
The bus departs 0655 and gets to Ikijiriohashi at 810, a quick trip on the train, although it will be a very crowded train it will get me to the office around 830. The cost is 1540 yen and you always get a seat, unfortunately the biggest problem with the bus is if the bus is late they do not give out "inconvenience tickets" which tell your employer you were late due to the bus/train/plane ect, and when your company is very aggressive about docking pay for lateness it could get expensive.
For this experiment I will try to check for my own sanity, how difficult it would be to go to work in Tokyo from Gotemba. For day 1 I will try the bus, then the regular commuter line, then finally the Shinkansen to see which is fastest, easiest and cheapest. I think in order to stay under budget and still make it back every night it will take some usage of a combination of the bus and other routes. Stay tuned the next couple of days to see what the results and side effects are.