Someone (Wei-Yen) pointed this out to me on IM last night, A Geek in Tokyo said:
“Broadband access in Japan/Tokyo is ridiculous. Here you can buy up to 12Mbit ADSL or even 100Mbit fiber-to-the-home. My 8Mbit ADSL just got a price cut and is now ¥650 per month. Thats $5.56US, £3.47 (UK Sterling) or about $9.00AU a month. I can’t believe it.”
Neither can I. You know, I’ve always fancied learning Japanese! 
Although, living in downtown Tokyo, can be real expensive…i heard in some apartments its NZ$5000 or so (I think) a month! Thats 2500 GBP.
Meat is a premium too. So there are upsides and downsides, I guess.