Tokyo Japan

AS surely as the sun rises in the east and the ocean meets the shore, Tokyoites pay $7 for a cup of coffee and $200 a head for dinner, right? Actually, no. This is the biggest myth I have encountered in more than 20 years as a corporate employee, writer and consultant on both sides of the Pacific. Japan may be the world's second-largest economy and Tokyo among the most expensive cities in the world, but most Japanese would go broke fast if they spent that much on food.

Alan R. Zeleznikar of Oceanside took this neck-craning shot of Tokyo's Hermes building, designed by Renzo Piano, while he was on a January business trip to Japan's capital. "I took my camera, put it in the palm of my hand, stood underneath and took the shot," he said. He used a Canon PowerShot G3.

There's something about the Nissan GT-R that brings out the hype in people. "It's been like anticipating an asteroid hitting the Earth," said Chad Glass, a 37-year-old North Hollywood storyboard artist who moderates a forum at www.nagtroc.com, a website dedicated to the high-performance sports car. Glass was talking about the debut of the new GT-R, a vehicle most Americans have never heard of and most likely won't be able to afford when it shows up in the U.S.

Tokyo's subway authority will allow a station advertisement featuring a nude and pregnant Britney Spears, officials said Thursday, dropping a plan to censor the photo. HB Japan Inc., publisher of the Japanese edition of Harper's Bazaar, plans to rent ad space at the posh Omotesando station next week to promote its October issue with Spears posing naked on the cover.

The 41st Tokyo Motor Show 2009 is opening this weekend, but what used to be Asia's premier showcase of new automobile technology is turning into, well, pretty much a domestic event. Just 109 exhibitors will participate, compared with 241 companies during the previous show in 2007. No U.S. automakers will display their wares. Just three foreign passenger carmakers are exhibiting, none of them major. The decline underscores a shifting balance of automotive power in Asia, where China is the rising star.

Nearly 10,000 people attended a Tokyo conference Saturday opposing the government's drive to change the pacifist clause of Japan's Constitution, organizers and news reports said. Article 9 of the constitution, drafted by U.S. occupation forces and unchanged since 1947, bars the use of military force in settling international disputes.

YOSHIKAZU MERA stands less than 5 feet tall, barely a head higher than the closed lid of the piano next to him. His face appears ensnared in eternal boyhood. His hair is cut in a cuddly Beatle mop. He is wearing a white shirt with puffy sleeves and shoulders, billowing gold lame pants, platform shoes and a dramatic cape. He is the Hello Kitty of countertenors, men who sing in a woman's range.

So this is major league baseball! A crowd of 55,000 turned out on a rainy Tuesday night to watch the Tampa Bay Devil Rays upset the New York Yankees, 8-3, in the opening game of the season at the Tokyo Dome, and they liked what they saw. "You could really feel the power of the players and the wonder of American baseball," said Kazunori Mukoyama, a 20-year-old Yankee fan from near Tokyo. "I was disappointed at the result; I never imagined the Yankees would lose. But it was a great game anyway."

A regional court ruled that a visit by Prime Minster Junichiro Koizumi to a Tokyo war shrine violated Japan's Constitution, media reported. The visit to Yasukuni shrine was religious in nature and violated the division between religion and state, said Kiyonaga Kamegawa, chief justice of Fukuoka District Court. The ruling came in a lawsuit by 211 activists, who were denied their request for $200,000 in damages.

Colony Capital, a Century City-based real estate investor, offered to buy control of Tokyo's 114-year-old Imperial Hotel, the onetime address of choice in the Japanese capital for Bob Hope, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe. The $9-billion fund is negotiating with UFJ Holdings Inc., the main lender to Kokusai Kogyo Co., to buy the hotel and transportation company's 39.4% stake in Imperial Hotel Ltd., said Toshio Masui, the president of Colony's Japanese operation.