Hi there, I'm wondering if anyone can clear up where I went wrong on my journey from my local station to Karuizawa and back over this weekend.
I dont understand how transferring to the shinkansen works if you've come from somewhere else by IC card and need to tap out.
I got on the JR train at my local (unstaffed, open ticket gate) station by tapping my pasmo, and headed directly to Ueno with no changes.
I arrived at Ueno station and, without leaving the train side of the station, tapped my pasmo at the same time as I entered my shinkansen ticket into the gate, and got on the shinkansen to Karuizawa.
I arrived at Karuizawa and put my shinkansen ticket into the exit gate, it was swallowed up as expected. I didn't do anything with my pasmo.
The next day, I put my return shinkansen ticket into the machine to enter Karuizawa station and got on the train back to Ueno.
I arrived back in Ueno, put my return ticket into the the shinkansen exit gate and tried to tap my pasmo but it flashed red – the gates opened and allowed me through however thanks to my shinkansen ticket.
Again, without leaving Ueno station, I headed home on my local JR train, knowing that I hadn't tapped in correctly and wouldn't be able to tap out.
As my station is unstaffed, I'll have to call them at the intercom tomorrow to explain what happened and figure out how to rectify it, as I assume my pasmo won't be working right now.
What did I do wrong? Where should I have/not have tapped?
Should I have tapped out and back in the next day at Karuizawa? Why did my pasmo flash red at the shinkansen gate Ueno if I was just trying to tap in to the regular train side to get home?
Apologies that this is so long! Japanese trains are confusing and I don't know how to explain this properly as I don't take the shinkansen more than once or twice a year.
by cahilljoe
