Prices in Japan are prohibitively high, aren’t they?
People seem to think that prices in Japan are prohibitively high, but prices in Tokyo and other big, Japanese cities are not particularly higher than those of other major cities in the world. The 2002 survey of price differentials (the purchasing power parity divided by the exchange rate) between Tokyo and major cities of the world shows that the average price in Tokyo is 1.06 times that of London, 1.13 times that of Paris and Frankfurt and 1.24 times that of New York. So you can see that prices in Tokyo are not conspicuously higher than those of other major cities of the world. Recently in Japan, 100-yen shops and other discount stores, where you can buy reasonably-priced daily necessities and unique gifts, are proliferating. You can also find inexpensive restaurants serving meals for 1,000 yen or less. So it’s easy to enjoy staying in Japan without spending a fortune.
