A couple more things:

1) Driving in Japan is like driving anywhere else in that it is faster outside towns (except entering or leaving at rush hour) and is never fast in big cities, but noticably faster in smaller ones.

Signs on all major roads are in English characters so you can phoneticallly get through reading street signs. Signs in all places are inclusive of road numbers so one cannot easily get lost. This last depends to a large extent on one's own sense of direction however.

I have been driving here for 12 years and have found it very easy to zip around outside the perimeter of Tokyo. Inside Tokyo, well, that is a test of patience not dissimilar to crossing the Bay Bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area at rush hour.

2) There is a store called Kinokuniya which is in many major cities in the USA and they ahve a wonderful selection of books usually found in Japanese bookstores. You may want to have a look at one of these for road atlas while in the US.

Mike

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