Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
310
for postcards. Post offices throughout
Japan are also convenient for their ATMs,
which accept international bank cards
operating on the PLUS and Cirrus sys-
tems, as well as MasterCard and Visa.
Although all post offices are open Mon-
day through Friday from 9am to 5pm,
major post offices in each ward remain
open to 7pm. The
Shibuya Central Post
Office,
1-12-13 Shibuya (
&
03/5469-
9907;
station: Shibuya), has longer busi-
ness hours than most: Monday through
Friday 9am to 9pm; and Saturday, Sunday,
and holidays 9am to 7pm. An after-hours
counter remains open throughout the
night for mail and packages, making it the
only 24-hour post office in town.
Note:
The Central Post Office, built in 1931
near Tokyo Station, is closed for major
renovation until approximately 2012.
As for mailing packages, your hotel may
have a shipping service. Otherwise, you
can mail packages abroad only at larger
post offices. Conveniently, they sell card-
board boxes in several sizes with the neces-
sary tape. Packages mailed abroad cannot
weigh more than 20kg (about 44 lb.). A
package weighing 10kg (about 22 lb.) will
cost ¥6,750 to North America via surface
mail and will take about a month to arrive.
Express packages, which take 3 days to
North America and can weigh up to 30kg
(66 lb.), cost ¥12,550 for 10kg (22 lb.).
For English-language postal informa-
tion, call
&
0570-046111
Monday
through Friday between 8am and 10pm,
weekends and holidays between 9am and
10pm, or check the website
www.post.
japanpost.jp
.
NEWSPAPERS & MAGAZINES
Three
English-language newspapers are pub-
lished daily in Japan: the
Japan Times
and
the
Daily Yomiuri
(the former with a
weekly supplement from
The Observer
and
the latter with a weekly supplement from
The Washington Post
), as well as the
Inter-
national Herald Tribune/Asahi Shim-
bun.
Hotels and major bookstores carry
the international editions of such news-
magazines as
Time
and
Newsweek.
You can
also read the
Japan Times
online at www.
japantimes.co.jp and the
Daily Yomiuri
at
www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy.
PASSPORTS
For information on
obtaining passports, please contact the fol-
lowing agencies:
For Residents of Australia
Contact the
Australian Passport Information Service
at
&
131-232,
or visit the government
website at www.passports.gov.au.
For Residents of Canada
Contact the
central
Passport Office,
Department of
Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
Ottawa, ON K1A 0G3 (
&
800/567-
6868;
www.ppt.gc.ca).
For Residents of Ireland
Contact the
Passport Office,
Setanta Centre, Moles-
worth Street, Dublin 2 (
&
01/671-1633;
www.irlgov.ie/iveagh).
For Residents of New Zealand
Contact
the
Passports Office
at
&
0800/225-050
in New Zealand, or 04/474-8100; or log
on to www.passports.govt.nz.
For Residents of the United King-
dom
Visit your nearest passport office,
major post office, or travel agency, or con-
tact the
United Kingdom Passport Ser-
vice
at
&
0870/521-0410,
or search its
website at www.ukpa.gov.uk.
For Residents of the United States
To
find your regional passport office, either
check the U.S. Department of State web-
site or call the
National Passport Infor-
mation Center
toll-free number
(
&
877/487-2778
) for automated infor-
mation.
POLICE
The national emergency tele-
phone number is
&
110.
For nonemer-
gency criminal matters or concerns, the
Metropolitan
Police
Department
main-
tains an English-language telephone coun-
seling service for foreigners at
&
03/3501-0110
Monday through Fri-
day from 8:30am to 5:15pm.
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