on 3/16/2000 11:58 AM, Brian Payne <sofaspud@sofaspud.org> wrote:
* Prices. I can handle it in yen or in rough US equivalents, but I
have no clue as to the price of everyday things in Japan. A can of Coke
from a machine averages $.75 in the US; what's it cost in Japan? That
sort of thing. Gas costs. Train/subway fees. Taxi costs. Rental on
apartments. Video rentals from a video store. Any and all of this sort
of information would be a huge help. If anyone knows of an online
resource for it, that would be even better. :)
Wow, questions I might be able to answer...
This is all from the last time I was there, about two years ago (at the peak
of cherry blossoms -- what a stroke of luck!).
- Vending machine Coke: 110 yen. Good luck finding Diet Coke... all they
have is "Coke Light", which is kind of like a Coke/Diet Coke blend. Yuck.
- Train fare: depends on how far you are going. The minimum was 140 yen. It
was 160 yen on some lines. If you were going out from downtown, it might go
up to 240 or so. Out to the suburbs? Up to 360 yen or so.
- Taxis: I don't remember it being insane, unless you did something crazy
like take a taxi to Narita airport (a marketing guy I was with did well over
10000 yen). I think a taxi from the Imperial Hotel to Tokyo station was
500-700 yen or something like that; it's about a mile (I had too much
luggage for the subway that time). That was a good five years ago, though.
- Gas: can't help you, but 4x US prices is a good rule of thumb for anywhere
else in the world but here.
- Apartment rentals. I perused these once, but don't remember. I was going
to be transferred to Tokyo for a year about five years ago, but it fell
through. A good guess would be in the 100000's of yen per month for a cheap
place. That's just a guess, though. The rent also depends a lot on how far
it is from the nearest train station.
- Video rentals: I have no idea... sorry.
Good luck on your fic!
Deborah