Information Center – East Ticket Gate

* Efficient exchange *
When visiting Japan with a little extra time on my hands, I always like to pick up a Japan Rail Pass so that I can do a bit of exploring during my free time. Granted, you have to plan ahead and purchase the pass abroad, and then visit an exchange office in Japan to activate it, but it is such a wonderful freedom to have once in Japan it is worth the extra steps to get it.
The pass works on almost all JR lines in Japan, including many of the shinkansen trains (not on Nozomi or Mizuho though). Seven days is really reasonable at 38,880 yen for Green Car, or 29,110 yen for regular car. Considering that a green car Hikari roundtrip from Tokyo to Kyoto is almost 37,000 yen the pass makes for a great deal even for simple roundtrip travel — with the added bonus of hopping a random shinkansen to go to a random station for lunch/​exploring/​etc, and the random luxury of taking a non-​crowded green car on a short route like Ebisu to Shinjuku during rush hour.
Normally if I want to use the pass to cover the trip into town from the airport I just exchange it at the airport exchange counter. But sometimes I don’t want to «waste» the first few days and save it for later in the trip, or arrive too late for the airport exchange office (I’m looking at you, Haneda airport with the Vancouver ANA flight arriving after the office closes!). Then you need to go to an exchange office at one of the stations to exchange it.
And this is where this little exchange counter located in the basement near the East Ticket Gate in the Shinjuku station came in useful on my latest trip. The small little counter is staffed by two very professional and helpful staff. Validating the pass is a procedure they have entirely routinized — it is like watching an assembly line.
The first woman validates your passport and the pass to make sure all is ok after giving you a form to fill out. She then checks everything against the form and makes little marks all over it with a highlighter. She then hands it off to the next woman who double checks everything with her own colour highlighter. She then hands it back to the first one to complete the pass, give you timetables, and answer any questions about how to use the pass. It is kind of amusing to watch the amount of work they do in such a quick time to validate the pass.
After all is set, and I had the new pass in hand I just had to turn around to head and cross the station hallway to visit the JR Reservation desk and I was able to book a whole bunch of reserved green car seats for the major long distance parts of my planned travel. It is such a treat to walk away with the pile of reserved tickets that I knew would be bringing me to all sorts of good food across Japan!
So overall, while it is a bit of a hassle to get the pass and exchange it, the amusement of the almost robot like efficiency of the two women working this information counter that does exchanges as well as the joy of getting a pile of green car tickets make the entire exchange efficient in my mind!