Business contacts

Mobile phones Japanese mobiles use a system that is incompatible with GSM or the US system, so it’s best to rent a phone, either before leaving home or on arrival. In the UK, Adam Phones has compatible mobiles for €1 a day (Tel: 0800 032 1200). In Japan, try Tokyobay Communication Co (website: www. tokyobay.co.jp), which rents phones for €17.50 for three days or €75 a month, and it has a branch at Narita airport. Much the best, if you’re staying in a decent place, is to hire from your hotel. Charges are around €5 a day plus call charges. For a longer stay, buy yourself a ketai (cell phone) at one of the ubiquitous Tu-Ka, Au, Vodafone or DoCoMo stores for €25 for the simplest models. Meanwhile, for the latest on Japan’s rapidly developing mobile phone system (the most advanced in the world with 90 million in use) check with DoCoMo on www.nttdocomo.com.

Car hire Try Avis (Tel: 5397 8915 or 0120 311 911), Hertz (Tel: 0120 489 882 and www.hertz.car.co.jp), Nippon Rent-a-Car (Tel: 3485 7196 English service desk), Nissan Rent-a-Car (Tel: 5424 4111 or 0120 004 123), Orix (Tel: 3779 0543) and Toyota Rent-a-Car (Tel: 5954 8008 or 0070/8000 10000). All have branches around the city and at Narita and Haneda airports. Hire cars cost €32.50 to €65 a day with unlimited mileage and insurance, but not petrol. You’ll need an international or Japanese driving licence. But be warned: English-speaking staff are few and far between.

Before you hire a car, consider that public transport in Tokyo is extensive and reliable and road signs are mostly in Japanese. For the technically minded, rental cars come with maps on screens, so it helps to learn how to operate one of these. They will take you to within 100 metres of your destination. The last 100 metres can be tricky!

Office rental This is not recommended in Japan, where all up-to-date hotels have rooms designed to be used as offices by international businessmen, and the hotel staff take messages very efficiently. Plus, almost all hotels have business centres. If you must rent office space, you need a Japanese secretary to handle the details and do the Japanese-language negotiations (most Japanese don’t speak English nor ‘think’ English). For longer stays, ask your hotel to introduce a realty firm. Let them decide who that is, then the burden is on them.

Secretarial and translation services Again, ask your hotel to introduce someone. Make the hotel staff your friends (but no tipping, see page 212).

Local press

The best guide to Tokyo for visiting and resident expats is Metropolis, a free weekly magazine published by Mark and Mary Devlin, two Glaswegians who founded the magazine a decade ago. It has plenty of information on restaurants, art exhibitions, movies and clubs, plus classified ads galore and plenty of Roppongi club and bar ads. Then there is The Japan Times, which is good for placing employment ads but not much else. The International Herald Tribune is available (but see the New York Times website anyway), and then there is Weekender, which is very strong on the social scene, thanks to Tokyo’s one social columnist, veteran Bill Hersey.

Internet

Many hotels now have broadband access in every room, offered free or for a small fee (could be €5 a day). You need a local area network cable and most hotels have them. If not, buy one at a local electronic shop for €2.50. Cybercafés are opening (and closing) all the time and there’s no convenient directory.

In central Tokyo, places offering free or cheap internet connections, sometimes for the price of a cup of coffee, are: Marunouchi Café, 1F Shin Tokyo Building, 3-3-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-Ku, Tel: 3212-5025. Open Monday-Friday 8am-8pm, Saturday-Sunday 10am-6pm. You can plug in your own computer.

Apple Ginza Store, 3-5-12 Ginza, Chuo-Ku. Open daily 10am-9pm.

Gera Gera, B1 Remina Building, 3-17-4 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-Ku, Tel: 3350 5692.

A 24-hour cybercafé with manga comics, DVDs and computer games, charging [00a3]1.90 per hour.

Bagus, 28-6 Udagawa-cho, ShibuyaKu, Tel: 5428 3217. Another 24-hour cybercafé.

Virgin record stores in Shinjuku and Ikebukuro also have internet cafés.

See www.cybercaptive.com and www. cybercafe.com for more details. Otherwise, the largest chain offering internet connections is Kinko’s. Prices are high, generally €1 for 10 minutes. Hotel business centres can be expensive but they are convenient.

Money

The currency is the yen. Bills come in denominations of Y1,000 to Y10,000. Subway machines usually accept all of them, but if not, ask one of the uniformed attendants to break down your big note— what service! Tokyo is still largely a cash society and many cafés and restaurants take cash only. Popular credit cards are MasterCard, Visa and the Japanese card known as JCB. Many big city facilities accept American Express and Diners Club. As for the ATMs, most machines accept only cards issued by Japanese banks. Consider getting one if you’re staying a while. If you have a non-Japanese bank card, all post offices accept foreign bank cards using the Cirrus (MasterCard) or Plus (Visa) systems. These machines operate during limited hours (may be until 6pm or 7pm on weekdays and shut weekends). A piece of advice: when you arrive at your hotel, stop at the cashier’s desk, show your bank cards and establish what can be used. Beware of long weekends. Bank opening hours are 9am-3pm and there are one or two Citibank branches in Tokyo.

In general, the city lacks foreign bank branches catering to individuals. They’ve been crushed by the local competition.

Tipping etiquette

No tips in Japan, it is always said, but this isn’t 100% true. If you’ve taken a cab off the front of the queue at a hotel, and the driver may have waited for two to three hours, leave him with the small change, especially if you’ve taken a short ride.

At the hotel itself, don’t tip the bellboy as it will confuse him. The same goes for everyone else (in the restaurants, at the hospitality desks). Restaurants and bars charge for service, so it’s already been added to your bill.

Visa/vaccination

You don’t need a visa if you’re coming into Japan as a tourist. If you are going to work for remuneration, you need a working visa. For a stay of more than 90 days, you’ll have to make a trip out of Japan and come back in under a visa. You may also need a sponsor in Japan to re-enter. The authorities have tightened up recently and, strictly speaking, the law says you must carry identification with you at all times. An inquisitive policeman can throw the book at you, so never argue, always smile. Vaccinations are no longer needed.

Public holidays

Note: If one of the holidays listed falls on a Sunday, then Monday is also a holiday.
1st January — New Year’s Day
Second Monday in January — Adults’ Day
11th February — National Foundation Day
20-21st March — Spring equinox
29th April — Showa Day
3rd May — Constitution Memorial Day
4th May — Greenery Day
5th May — Children’s Day
20th July — Marine Day
15th September — Respect for Aged Day
23rd/24th September — Autumn equinox
3rd November — Culture Day
23rd November — Labour Thanksgiving Day
23rd December — Emperor’s birthday

Weather and climate

Tokyo has very marked seasons and they’re one of the joys of this city. The winter is long and comfortable, with cool air blowing in from the north, but not that much rain, sleet or snow. Spring comes with a rush, with the blossoms, and suddenly it’s warm in April/May. It then turns boiling hot and stuffy at the height of summer—Tokyo lies at the same latitude as southern Spain. Autumn is a wondrously beautiful time of year when breezes shift to the north and skies are often uniformly blue. A heavenly climate all round, and the industrial pollution is now gone as well.

Suggested reading

Anything by Haruo Murakami. He writes like a magazine scribbler and some find him unreadable, but he’s what the world wants. He sells more novels worldwide than any Japanese writer in history.

After the Banquet, by Yukio Mishima, gives a sense of how Tokyo society works.

Essays in Idleness, by Kenkoo (that’s a long O at the end), a 14th-century writer, was translated by Donald Keene.

The Tale of Genji is the oldest novel in the world. Try the translation by Arthur Waley if you favour Bloomsbury era prose, or there’s one by Edward Seidensticker if you prefer lean prose by a dedicated American scholar.