McQuilkin and Nielsen at Bernini's in La Jolla on July 15th, 2009

Tokyo is the world's most expensive city

By Sarah Lynch, Forbes.com

Jul 8th, 2009

Tokyo is the world's most expensive city, according to Mercer's 2009 Worldwide Cost of Living survey released today, with the cost of living up 13.1% from 2008; the city ranked at No. 2 in 2008's survey. Japan's capital is followed by Osaka and Moscow, which held the top spot in last year's rankings. Geneva comes in fourth. Read the whole story here.....

Pushy French are world's worst tourists; Japanese are top: study

Friday 10th July, 07:29 AM JST

PARIS —

Penny-pinching, rude and terrible at foreign languages: French people are the world’s worst tourists according to a study of the global hotel industry released on Thursday.

Carried out last month by TNS Infratest, the study asked 40,000 hotels worldwide to rank tourists from 27 countries based on nine criteria, from their politeness to their willingness to tip.

Clean and tidy, polite, quiet and uncomplaining, Japanese tourists came top of the crop for the third year running.

At the other end of the spectrum, French holidaymakers and business travelers were the least generous or ready to tip, and ranked next-to-last for their overall behavior and politeness.

Pushy French travelers made amends on elegance—classed third—as well as for their discretion and cleanliness.

But the French were the least ready to try a new language, unlike U.S. tourists who were most likely to swallow their pride and order a pizza, baguette or a paella in the local lingo.

U.S. tourists also got top marks for generosity—as the biggest spenders and tippers—but fell short on other counts as the least tidy, the loudest, the worst complainers, and the most badly dressed.

Despite cliches about beer-guzzling hordes descending on Mediterranean resorts each summer, Britons came a surprise second for their overall behavior, politeness, quietness and even elegance—second for dress sense only to the Italians.

But the model Japanese were followed by Canadians as the least likely to whinge when a trip goes wrong.

France’s rivals for the “worst tourist” tag, Spaniards and Greeks came near the bottom of the pack in almost every category.

Warden Message – Roppongi Security Notice: Drink Spiking

The U.S. Embassy continues to recommend that American citizens avoid frequenting bars and clubs in the Roppongi area of Tokyo due to drink-spiking incidents.

The U.S. Embassy continues to receive reliable reports of U.S. citizens being drugged in Roppongi-area bars. Most reports indicate that the victim unknowingly drinks a beverage that has been secretly mixed with a drug that renders the victim unconscious or stuporous for several hours, during which time large charges are fraudulently billed to the victim, sums of money are charged to the victim’s credit card, or the card is stolen. Victims sometimes regain consciousness in the bar or club, while at other times the victim awakens on the street. Assaults on Americans have also been reported in connection with drink-spiking.

For further information, please consult the Country Specific Information Sheet for Japan, available via the Internet at http://travel.state.gov