Originally Posted by LaydeeSarah

We were charged 10'000 Yen each for the meal - £44.91/$88.62 at today's exchange rate. Considering this meal lasts several hours i think its amazingly cheap. Of course this does not include drinks or gratuities, but one can hardly class this as expensive, given what most gourmet restaurants charge.

We actually found the 'Japan is expensive' line of thought to be a bit of a myth. The only thing that was expensive for us were the hotel transfers by car, so we used the train.