On Fri, 09 May 2008 21:54:13 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

Being used to Singapore and Hong Kong I had an unrealistic expectation
of how easy Tokyo would be. The main railway lines and Metro were fine -
however I did not venture on to the private lines or into the suburbs
where I expect the language on signs issue would tilt very heavily
towards Japanese only

My experience in Nagoya was consistent with this. In the centre of
the city there was very comprehensive signage using the Latin
alphabet, and even where some of the translations were a little
eccentric they could usually be understood. So it was disorienting to
find that some people I was visiting in a suburb were close to the
first metro station, travelling out of town, that had signage in
Japanese only

Martin