Late-night commuting

Daytime commuting in Tokyo is the height of efficiency and convenience. But, at night, just past midnight, things reverse. The transportation system turns back into a pumpkin, making the trip home a time-consuming, impoverishing come-down.

Buses finish early, while taxis prowl with fickle choosiness. Taxi lines stretch the length of unlighted stations and fares go up. At the end of the night, Tokyo's proudly punctual transportation system becomes deflated, aimless and aggravating.

I set out home from a jazz club with a musician friend. There was plenty of time. Granted, I set a lackadaisical commuting tone by schmoozing at the door of the club, stopping at the station toilet, getting a bottle of water at a convenience store and talking to distraction about music. But, nonchalant high spirits alone hardly warrant the pumpkin treatment.

But, that's what I got. The usual 50-minute trip home turned into 160 minutes; an affordable 450 yen fare into a budget-stifling 6,000 yen.

I had my preferred route, he had his; mine the predictable one, his set to avoid squashing his guitar. I conceded. My contribution to the arts. My mistake.

My route would have been this: six minutes and 160 yen from Akasaka to Harajuku on the Chiyoda line; four minutes from Harajuku to Shinjuku on the Yamanote Line; and then the crowded but swift, 19-minute snoozer from Shinjuku to Musashi-sakai on the Chuo Line for 290 yen. From there, the taxi line can be a 15-minute wait, but it's only one click of the meter home. Leaving at 11:40, I should have had my teeth brushed and been asleep by one.

Of course, it didn't happen like that.

We took the Chiyoda Line past Harajuku to connect to the..., well, we were talking, true, and sort of went past, well, the station to change trains, the name of which, well, wasn't so clear exactly, it being over a year or so since he last went that exact route, but it wasn't even close to one o'clock, so why worry, right?

We got off one overshot station later, turned around and headed back to Yoyogi-Uehara. Five minutes past, a few minutes up and down the stairs, and a fifteen-minute wait. We caught the 12:30 local back to Meidaimae, the last one, and then scampered down and under and up again to the right platform. There's a smug comfort to being on the right train line platform. From there, it should have been a straight shot on the Inokashira Line to Kichijoji, where my friend lives. From there I could make an easy transfer to the Chuo Line for two quick stops, then a brief wait for a taxi and home.

Of course, it didn't happen like that.

The train was packed to guitar-smashing capacity. Everyone else apparently was either as inattentive or nonchalant as us. The last Inokashira Line stops four stations before Kichijoji. Fair enough, since you can't have all those trains piled up at the station. Had we known the train didn't make it all the way to Kichijoji, we would have taken the Meidaimae train we were previously on all the way up to Shinjuku and caught the Chuo Line from there. That would have at least had a certain symmetrical regularity to it, making two 45-degree angles out and back for what would have been a straight shot from Harajuku on the Yamanote line. Crazy, but faster.

Of course, we didn't do that.

Train fare total thus far: 560 yen. Total time elapsed: 70 minutes. Already more than normal.

What we (also) didn't know was that the reason almost everyone curiously got off the train one stop before the last one was because that five-stops-before-Kichijoji station was directly on Inokashira Dori, a major thoroughfare where taxis pass on a regular basis. We imagined the taxis there, stopping politely, and no doubt frequently, to pick up passengers and swing them swiftly home.

Of course, it didn't happen quite like that.

Our four-stops-before-Kichijoji station was the kind that you don't even see until you turn the corner, with a barely raised platform, no pedestrian overpass, and, needless to say, few taxis. We should have followed the crowd walking numbly towards better taxi-hunting grounds, but we stood our ground with patience, resolve and naivete.

Thirty minutes and two trips to the convenience store later, a taxi, perhaps lost, arrived. We told him "Kichijoji" and he asked if we wanted to go along Inokashira Dori. We said, "Yes," foolishly, as it turned out. What he knew full well, but we had yet to find out was that the street was under repair. It was the end of tax season, he told us smiling in the rear-view mirror, so all repair funds had to be spent. Happens every year, he said.

A zippy, no-traffic ten minutes became a slow forty. And 2,800 yen.

After alighting the taxi, silently blaming my friend (who else was there to blame after all?), I hustled to the station gates. The Chuo Line frequently runs late. But not always. I scarcely recognized the station with its massive steel shutters yanked shut. The gates were sealed right on schedule, forty minutes before I got there.

The station was nearly encircled by two taxi lines, north and south. The patient, beleaguered taxi hopefuls eyed me incuriously. Walking to a far corner and waving frantically looked to be quicker.

But I changed my opinion on that.

A taxi driver did eventually pick me up, the fiftieth or so, the little red lights of the others showed "empty" in kanji as they shot obediently to the taxi lines. Of course, the drivers have respect for taxi lines. The length of the taxi line must be a reassuring symbol of income to them. A lone figure waving wildly in the middle of the street must appear a symbol of mayhem and insecurity.

The taxi driver who finally picked me up usually worked out of Kabukicho, the red-light entertainment district in Shinjuku. Maybe he thought a foreigner was more likely to be heading back there than anyone else. Anyway, the threat to social order I presented was no worry to him compared to Kabukicho. And he wanted to practice English.

Since his normal area was forty minutes and a world away, it was a combined effort of his sober kanji-reading and my determined memory-searching to head in the right direction. That leg of the journey was unproblematic enough, comparatively, but 2,600 yen nonetheless.

Once out of the taxi, I walked the last five minutes comfortingly by foot. It was 2:20 when I got to my toothbrush.

It would have been easier, not to mention faster, to have taken a taxi from right outside the club in the first place. The taxi driver said the fare that had brought him all the way to Kichijoji from Kabuki-cho was only 7,000 yen with three out-of-the-way stops.

I'll know next time.

(Note to editor: insert editorial here on the need for all-night trains in Tokyo.)

--Michael Pronko