I’ve been here just over a month but am staying for 2+ years. My Pasmo passport that I was initially advised to get for the settling in period has expired. I was aware of the IC shortage that has stopped the sale of new pasmo/suica cards but thought that I could get an equivalent on my phone. It turns out however that it is not ‘Osaifu-Keitai’ compatible.
What is the best way to access the tokyo public transport system, for the long term, if you:
\- cannot buy a pasmo/suica
\- do not have a Osaifu-Keitai compatible phone
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Do I need to buy individual tickets every time I travel? Or purchase a new phone simply to access public transport? Both of those seem more than a little impractical!
10 comments
Do you have school or a job? Pretty sure you can still get a commuters pass
Do you have a job or do you go to school where you have to go most days of the week? If yes you can still get a commuter pass on an IC Card.
The other options include getting a card from a different region or paying an extra to buy a card from a reseller (for example there is some websites that sell regular IC cards to tourist).
You can buy paper tickets, still, and pay with coins on the bus.
You can get cheap new Android with osaifu keitai for less than 15k nowadays.
Not that helpful but I believe IC cards can still be bought outside of JR East’s operating area. Flying roundtrip to Osaka just to buy an IC card would be cheaper than a new phone.
Get a TOICA card from JR Central’s counter at Tokyo, Shinagawa or Shin-Yokohama station.
You can always buy a used local phone or an old IC card or smart watch. I have old Suica and Sugoca I don’t need.
Search mercary , you can buy suica/pasmo for around 2000-3000 jpy
I use a fitness tracker / smart watch (Fitbit Charge 5) for Suica-type payments. Don’t have NFC functionality on my tablet (and I don’t use a phone) but it can charge money (only) via the app using Bluetooth. It’s doable but it’s not as stress-free compared to charging the Suica card normally.
I upgraded to a Pixel 7 recently (used to use digital Pasmo on a Pixel 5) and it said it was incompatible with Osaifu Keitai in Google Wallet, but switching to a Japanese account in the Play Store let me download and set it up just fine. If you haven’t already, I’d try switching to a Japanese account for whatever app store you use to see if that works!