Access Guide to Tsukuba
The workshop will be held at the Tsukuba Epochal Congress Center,
located in the central part of the
city of Tsukuba, Ibaraki-ken, Japan.
Tsukuba is located some 30 miles northwest of the Narita (New Tokyo)
International
Airport, and some 40 miles northeast of downtown Tokyo.
See this
map.
Here are some ways for you to get to Tsukuba.
From the Narita (Tokyo International) Airport to Tsukuba :
Option 1: Take an express bus, "Airport Liner Natt's".
It takes about 100 minutes between the Narita Airport
and the Tsukuba Center
bus terminal.
Timetable
The fee is 2540 yen (one way). No reservation is necessary when going from
Narita to Tsukuba.
Ticket counters are located
on the arrival floor of the terminals, the ground level.
The bus station at Narita is No.15 at Terminal 1,
and No.12 at Terminal 2.
Map
of the Narita bus station.
Option 2 : Take a cab.
Expensive, perhaps 30k yen or $300.
From downtown Tokyo to Tsukuba :
For some reason if you are already in Japan and are coming through
Tokyo,
then take a Tsukuba Express (TX)
train from the TX
Akihabara station (underground).
You may have heard of Akihabara, which is famous for its
consumer electronics shops.
The trains connect
the two places in 45 minutes (rapid services)
and 52 minutes (semi-rapid sevices).
A TX guide in English (pdf)
The fee is 1150 yen one way, irrespective of the type of the service.
Note that some of the trains leaving Akihabara terminate at Moriya,
two-thirds of the way to Tsukuba.
From the Haneda (old Tokyo International) Airport to Tsukuba :
Haneda is mostly domenstic, contrary to its name,
but
if you are going through Haneda,
it may be convenient to take a highway bus.
Timetable -
The fare is 1800 yen (one way).
The bus station at Haneda is No.13 at both Terminals 1 and 2.
From Tsukuba Center Bus Terminal / TX Tsukuba Station
to Epochal :
map
It is about a 10 minute walk.
If you are too tired or carrying
luggage, take a taxi from the terminal; should cost less than 1000 yen.
The TX Tsukuba station is underground, and the bus terminal is on top of
it.
The place looks like
this
or
this,
or
this.
From the ground level,
take the stairs up to the pedestrian walk level, then go south
to the Epochal.
The yellow band in this
map leads to the walkway.
The green area is the TX station (underground).
If you start seeing a rocket or Mt. Tsukuba,
you are heading north. Turn back!
(The rocket is being re-painted right now, so you could see onlly the
scaffold,