In my last visit to Akihabara, i noticed the no smoking sign written on the street with a very big no smoking sign..but i saw still many people smoked..what is your opinion about this..sorry if i was mistaken
I'd follow the flow of traffic; if you see people smoking, it's probably alright to light-up in that area. If you see signs up and no one is smoking, take the 'suggestion'
I watched a news coverage that they've got multi-lingual brochures to explain the regulation to a tourist-like guy, but I bet they don't have any Latin one.
It says smoking is prohibted on the designated streets, therefore, you may smoke at the entrance of starbucks in Akihabara as long as you stand in their properties and properly dispose your cigarette butts. But you need courage to accept beaming from coffee lovers.
My last two trips to Japan I noticed that smoking is getting more and more restricted. It is a lot more restricted in comparison to my first visit in 2001. I had to smoke at Narita airport before getting on the Narita Express to get to Tokyo. The first time I came to Japan I was able to smoke in a smoking area between cars.
Theres alot of areas in Japan where smoking on the street is prohibited and subject to fines. Laws are not "suggestions", and in particular stop signs are definitly not suggestive. As soon as you start thinking like that you are endangering yourself and others
In my last visit to Akihabara, i noticed the no smoking sign written on the street with a very big no smoking sign..but i saw still many people smoked..what is your opinion about this..sorry if i was mistaken