Tokyo Map

After living in Tokyo for over eight years, I still get lost from time to time.
Sometimes very very lost ToT.

Most of the time its easy finding a location on a large road as they usually have a name. The smaller roads however don't have names and are instead assigned a number. The fun part is when looking for an address that ends in "2-15-5." This means that there is a section of land called "2" - within that section is another section called "15" and finally within that section, "5" points to a series of buildings - you have to work out which building you want.

Most buildings or houses don't even have numbers. My address is exactly the same address as our neighbour - the only thing to help the postman is the names on our postboxes.

A typical map. Notice how sections are labeled with bold numbers and smaller numbers within those sections.
You basically paste an address in the top right hand corner of that page, print out the map and then head off to the location - even with this map in hand, one can should allow 15 minutes extra to wander around these numbered areas looking for the location.

Your lucks in (not) when you come across these traditional hand drawn maps - the only thing labeled on this map are the name of the shops - no road names or numbers. Most of these traditional maps dont even tell you your current location - this one does though.

I did like the address naming convention in America though - it made sense and was easy to get about even without a map.