In Tokyo for the Games, our special correspondent tells the story of adventure within adventure. On the sixteenth day, he finally gets off in the metro.
That’s it ! I can finally use public transport. The day before, I went to pick up a «TP card», sort of pass to access the capital’s transport network. As much to say to you that I did not have to pray to test all this as soon as it left the hotel.
Kayabacho Station, Hibiya line, small change for Chiyoda towards Yoyogi Stadium, just to work in front of the hand girls, even if I note that the meeting is already well underway. I arrive, the match has just ended, but I’m happy anyway. The metro seems fairly easy to use. It is about ten times cleaner than the one in Paris. The lines three times less crowded. Most of the time, we save a lot of time.
For example, to go to the gym in the afternoon, I should have taken the shuttle bus making the MPC-MTM junction and then taken a circular bus that must pass (and stop) by two sites close to each other on the bay before stopping at the Ariake Gymnastics Center. A ladle – and taking into account a (very, very) reasonable waiting time of ten minutes between buses – we must put 35-40 minutes. There, two metro stations, a good five minutes on foot, and I am at the edge of the carpets.
When the hand came back, a big storm made me understand that the TM buses still keep their usefulness. You still have to find the area around the stadiums, when you have never seen where the area was. The opportunity to indicate that on each site, only about one in ten people can tell me where these buses are located. It’s pretty incredible, when you know that there are just these buses, the ones for the athletes and the taxis.
One person sends you here, another the other way around. An exasperated Hungarian journalist joins the quest. He sees a smoking area: “Leave it to me, the people in the smoking area always know this stuff.” I quickly validate the theory and agree to let him do it. Banco. One of the guys knows. I’m telling the security man to drop it, so I’m not listening next. We leave. We grope. I wonder why the Hungarian wants to enter the site’s media center when I see the bus area. I show him the acronym “TM”. We realize that we are not looking for the same thing. But we find both, that’s the main thing. The misunderstanding has the merit of showing that no one knows anything about anything. You guessed it: this evening, I returned by metro.
In the Olympic bubble: #Jour1, #Jour2, #Jour3, #Jour4, #Jour5, #Jour6, #Jour7, #Jour8, #Jour9, #Jour10, #Jour11, #Jour12, #Jour13, #Jour14, #Jour15
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