interesting but not so relevant fact now, america deliberately lowered the value of their dollar during the 80s so as to make japanese imports more expensive and make consumers spend more on US goods. as an indirect result of this we now have indoor beaches in Japan. lol there is a very good connection there i assure you, i wonder if anyone knows it.

oh yeah you cant buy anything with ONE YEN. You can't really buy anything
with one penny either but Japanese don't use pennies and as you said
it DOES take more yen to equal a USD. I mean the actual WORTH not
the amount of YEN.

The yen is stronger than the USD right now, and I've read that the yen is getting stronger, wich is not good news for Japan I guess.

Japan is the 1st most expensive country to live in in the world, the USA is the 13th most expensive country to live in in the world, while the UK is the 16th most expensive country to live in in the world, I forgot where I got those but I've copied them in a word document :).

Again, it's impossible to look at a country as a whole. The massive difference in cost of living between urban and rural locations is far greater than the differences between countries. Urban UK is far more expensive than rural US or Japan, urban US is far more expensive than rural UK or Japan, and urban Japan is far more expensive than rural US or UK.

It's a double-edged sword, not simply a negative

Japan imports most of it's food so a strong yen is great there! Obviously, exporting companies will be hit though

isnt tokyo rated 2nd most expensive city to live in the world right now?

yes every thing is super expensive, if you wana live on a budget there are ways to do so.

but generally, food and brand named items, electronics, going out, bars, cab fairs, all Super expensive.

esp in Tokyo.

i mean if you go to the boonies, its gona be a huge price difference, but Citywise its crazy expensive

I actually didn't find it expensive at all, how much would one generally pay for for a trip, say to the Bahamas? My rough guess is approximately 120-200 a day, and thats exactly how much you can expect to spend in Japan for a trip, and its not sub-standard style that you will be traveling in. You just need to know where to eat and do all your shopping.

So, taking that into consideration, I would imagine living in Japan won't be too too different than living everywhere else, as long as you make "local income"

When I go I mainly want to visit kyoto(about 3 wks trip), would it be worth it to stay outside the city and ride the train in or do something similar?

I was thinking that same thing...
I really want to go to Japan (to Tokyo) but I'm not sure how expensive it is??
I'd like to stay there for a while (8-14 days) but not spend loads of money, and go broke fast (unless its really worth it lol)

hi i m frm india
 

i saw currency rate among the world, japanies currency is not powerful than indian currency, but i little confused about wht is japanies inflation rate among all these things like vegitables and crockry and foods. but japanies people might intelegent than us , i think so:)