Drinking in public
Although it is allowed to drink out in public, you may want to think twice about drinking in Japan as the prices can be a lot higher than where you come from. Especially beer is kind of expensive for what you get as Japanese beer isn’t as strong as others. Drinking at an Izakaya, Japanese bar, or restaurant can easily cost you 500 jpy a beer, which is around 5 dollars.
Queuing at restaurants
Although you often see this in video’s about Japan, I rarely experienced this during my travels. However, it’s something you may often see because some restaurants came on television and suddenly get a lot of customers because of it, this is however only temporary.
If this is something you are worried about because you don’t want to wait in line and waste precious time whilst traveling through Japan, avoid going to restaurants between 11:30 and 13:30. During that time most workman are going to get food, so to save yours and theirs time, get yourself some snacks so you last long enough until around 2, chances are it will be quieter and the waiter will have more time available to figure out what you are trying to order. :p
Restaurant prices
Talking about restaurants, how much does it actually cost to be eating out in Japan. Well, for me I found it be surprisingly cheap compared to Belgium where a simple meal can cost you around 17 euro (2000 jpy), whilst in Japan you can easily find small places where a decent meal only costs around 500-700 jpy. That is with water and/or tea included! Probably my most favorite thing about restaurants in Japan is that they don’t want to be tipped, prices are reasonable, and you at-least get something to drink for free.
Most of the time they just place a big thermos with water and ice for you to refill your glass at any time you want. Isn’t that great? So far from taste, I’ve never been disappointed in Japan, although I used to be quite a picky eater. They can even make mushrooms taste great!!
Supermarkets or Konbini?
A Konbini is basically another name for convenience store in Japan, you will basically find them anywhere and if you thought restaurants are cheap, well meals in Konibini are even cheaper! But I should say that this is one of the things I wish I said differently in the video. If you want to travel on a budget, go to supermarkets for your food, chances are that there’s also a microwave which you can use to heat up your food. If there’s non available, just go to your hostel or ask in your hotel if they can heat it up for you.
Meals in supermarkets can vary greatly in price, with an average meal costing you a little less than 500 jpy most of the time with a lot of them in the 300-400 jpy price range, which is fantastic for budget travelers in Japan. So try to avoid Konbini as they are convenient but expensive, go to supermarkets, my personal recommendations are “Daiei” and “Life”.
If you are planning and traveling for a long time in Japan, or even living, I would recommend getting a rechargeable Waon card, works the same as an Icoca card but it allows you to pay at quite a lot of places and it gives you points, for every 200jpy spend, you’ll receive 1 jpy. Note however that such a card costs 300 jpy to create and that the registration process on their site is only in Japanese. So only do this when you are certain you will have benefits from it.
Exchanging money
For this I would recommend going to a Konibini as their rates are quite decent and most of them only charge 220 jpy costs. Note however that most banks will take their cut as well, because it’s an overseas transaction. Whilst living here I keep testing different ATM’s to see which one if the most affordable, I prefer Family mart but any of the Konbini’s will do as their rates are very competitive.
So don’t exchange your money beforehand. I said in the video that it’s better to go to a bank to exchange your money but I don’t stand behind that anymore after having tested it more clearly.
Best advice: Be friendly and respectful and they’ll be so towards you as well.
A special thanks to the people giving me all this information before I went to my first trip to Japan!
