Survival Japan - Maps

Coming from a land where streetmaps always have North at the top of the map, South at the bottom, East at the right and West to the left, Japanese streetmaps came as quite a surprise. North can be anywhere! More specifically, the direction located behind the map is displayed at the top of the map, the direction behind you when you are facing the map is at the bottom. Easy, right?

It just takes some getting used to. So after figuring out where you want to go from the map near the subway platforms, you often reach another streetmap when you exit the subway on street level. It changed completely. Since you are now facing a different direction, the orientation of the map also changes! Easy, right? Not for me!

It took me one week to figure out it was the same no matter where I went, and even then, being prepared to look at a changed map, it still didn't help. Perhaps with some more practice and turning things around it will get better. The most astonishing thing however, was handout maps. You get a piece of paper that you can turn and hold in any position you like. It would seem logical that in this case, North would be at the top of the paper. Unfortunately, it is not.

Take for instance the Shinjuku koen map, that shows South at the top, more or less. For this map, it's not a matter of the images and texts fitting better on the paper when it is orientated this way either. So why do this? In any case, this handout map was a good example of what was still to come.