Escalator?

Question

I was watching House Hunters International and this lady in Japan was looking for an apartment. Her realator kept saying "Only 15 minutes from the escalator," or "It's not far from the escalator!" What is the escalator? I mean I'm not stupid, I know what they are in America in malls and metros and what not. But, after her realator said "it's 15 min. from the escalator," its showed a video of these people standing on a flat escalator, like it was the metro or something. In Japan do they use escalators for public transportation? I'm confused! HELP, PLEASE!

Answer 1

It means the escalator to the subway, the nearest place where she has a subway terminal.

Answer 2

Are you sure it wasn't Hong Kong? In HK they have a very long series of escalators, called the Central-Mid-levels escalators, that people actually use for transportation through the city.

This escalator system (consisting of flat sections, like in airports, and ordinary sloped escalators) is nearly a kilometre in length and transports around 55,000 people each day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central-Mid...

Answer 3

Of course, many areas in Japan use escalator (エスカレーター)

and it also sounded same in jump.

Properly she didn't understand the English Word.