Japan is famous for two contradictory things: being a technological society, and running on cash. Both are true, and which one you meet depends entirely on where you are standing. In central Tokyo you can spend a week without touching a note. In a fish market in Sakaiminato at nine in the morning, the woman selling you crab has no interest in your Visa.
Cruise passengers hit the second Japan far more often than the first — because the good stuff in port towns is small, old and family-run. Here is what to carry.
The rule of thumb
| Port day type | Cash per person | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Walking port, no vehicles (Aomori near berth, Nagasaki, Keelung) | ¥5,000–7,000 | Lunch, one entry, souvenirs — the day itself is free |
| Transfer port (Kagoshima, Kanazawa, Hakodate, Akita, Kochi, Sakaiminato) | ¥8,000–12,000 | Add shuttle/taxi/tram, ferry, tower or museum |
| Big-city port (Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe) | ¥5,000 + cards | Cards work almost everywhere; cash is for snacks and shrines |
| Overseas call (Busan, Keelung) | local equivalent ~¥5,000 | Different currency — see the note below |
Double it if you are a couple sharing one wallet, and add ¥5,000 if you intend to buy a serious souvenir: knives, ceramics, sake and craft shops are the categories most likely to take cards, but the small independent makers are not.
What refuses plastic (the list that matters)
- Market stalls. Furukawa’s nokke-don ticket books, Jagalchi’s fish floor, Sakaiminato’s direct-sales centre, Omicho’s counters
- Buses and trams in most port cities — an IC card or exact coins
- Small shrines and temple entries, and every offering box in Japan
- Ramen counters and old kissaten — the older and better it is, the more likely it is cash
- Coin lockers at stations, which is where your souvenirs should live while you walk
- Sand baths, foot baths, small onsen entries
What takes cards happily
Department stores and their food basements, museums and towers, chain restaurants, convenience stores, most taxis in cities (say “kaado de” and they will nod), hotels, and the big souvenir halls at cruise terminals.
Getting yen without wasting port time
Draw once, in a city, early. The reliable foreign-card ATMs are at 7-Eleven and Japan Post Bank — both are near virtually every station in the port towns we cover, and both have English screens. Airport and terminal exchange counters exist but cost you more.
What you should not do is plan to find an international ATM in a small port on the morning you need it. In Sakaiminato, Akita or Kochi you can spend forty minutes solving a problem you could have solved in Yokohama on day one — and forty minutes is a sight.
Then get an IC card. Suica, ICOCA, Pasmo — any of them, from a station machine — and load ¥3,000–5,000. It pays for trams in Hakodate and Nagasaki, the Sakurajima ferry, buses in Kanazawa and Beppu, convenience stores, and most vending machines. (One honest exception: Kagoshima’s trams and City View bus take only the local Rapica card or contactless credit — carry coins there.) One tap, no coins, no queue behind you while you translate a fare chart.
The port-by-port cheat sheet
| Port | Cash to carry | The thing that will want it |
|---|---|---|
| Shimizu | ¥6,000 | Kashi-no-Ichi market bowls; the water bus to Miho |
| Kagoshima | ¥8,000 | Sakurajima ferry (¥250 each way, IC ok), Tenmonkan shops, shirokuma |
| Aomori | ¥6,000 | Furukawa market ticket books — cash only at the counter |
| Kobe | ¥5,000 + cards | Butaman queues and shrine boxes; the beef takes cards |
| Hakodate | ¥8,000 | Morning market stalls, tram day pass, the squid pond |
| Kochi | ¥8,000 | Hirome Market stalls, Sunday Market, the taxi to Katsurahama |
| Hiroshima | ¥7,000 | Trams, the ferry, oysters on Miyajima, okonomiyaki counters |
| Nagasaki | ¥6,000 | Trams (¥150 flat), Glover Garden, castella boxes |
| Yokohama | ¥5,000 + cards | Chinatown street snacks |
| Tokyo | ¥5,000 + cards | Depachika, Asakusa snack street, shrine offerings |
| Beppu | ¥8,000 | Hell entries, steam-cooking baskets, sand bath, buses |
| Kanazawa | ¥9,000 | Shuttle/bus, Kenroku-en, Omicho, gold-leaf everything |
| Sakaiminato | ¥8,000 | The crab you did not plan to buy but will |
| Akita | ¥8,000 | Bus/taxi into town, museum entries, kiritanpo lunch |
| Osaka | ¥5,000 + cards | Dotonbori street snacks; the castle and aquarium take cards |
| Otaru | ¥8,000 | Sushi counters and the older glass shops prefer cash |
| Takamatsu | ¥5,000 | Self-service udon is coins; garden entry ¥410 |
| Sasebo | ¥7,000 | Burger shops, the ¥1,800 boat fare, arcade snacks |
| Fukuoka | ¥7,000 | Yatai are cash-only; ramen ticket machines take notes |
| Ishigaki | ¥7,000 | Market stalls and the Taketomi ferry counter |
| Miyakojima | ¥10,000 | Charter share, soba houses, market — cards are thin here |
| Naha | ¥6,000 | Makishi market counters; monorail takes IC cards |
| Busan | ₩70,000–100,000 | Street food, taxis, market floors — Korea, not Japan |
| Keelung | NT$1,500–2,500 | Night-market stalls, Jiufen taxis, pineapple cakes |
Every one of those numbers assumes a normal day with lunch and a souvenir. Nobody has ever regretted the extra ¥3,000; several people have watched a market vendor shrug at their card.
One last thing about coins
You will accumulate them at a rate that surprises you, because Japan’s ¥100 and ¥500 pieces do the work notes do elsewhere. Keep them — they are exactly what shrine boxes, lockers, buses and vending machines want, and the moment you are standing at a tram fare box with a ¥10,000 note is the moment you learn this the expensive way.
Then relax. Nothing in a Japanese port town is trying to cheat you. It just wants to be paid the way it has always been paid.