I didn't see any Japanese girls with two pigtails O_o Not teenagers at least anyway...
I found manga in Japan about a third of the price that it is in Australia, probably because they don't have to go through translation and importing costs I guess. On the downside they're all in Japanese of course, so I can't read them very well
I did find some translated manga in an English language bookshop called Random Walk, but they were of a similar price and range to the ones at home.
I went for 2 weeks, returning last week - these are roughly my costs:
- food: 600-1000yen each meal, less for a simple combini store breakfast and more for a more fancy dinner
- accommodation: I stayed in a fairly fancy hotel in Osaka for 7000yen per night, a 3 star~ish hotel in Kyoto for 6000yen per night, and a hostel in Tokyo for 3500yen per night. All of the places were very clean and the staff friendly, so if you're strapped for cash then hostels are a decent way to go
- travel: most of the train rides in Tokyo were about 200-360yen, so with a bit of moving around we spent about 1000yen per day on train rides.
I still have to add up all my costs, but I think it ended up about AUD$4000 with spending money
Our dollar is fairly high against the yen at the moment though, which worked out well.