Hey guys, anyone know how much cheaper alcohol prices are in Japanese duty free compared to Japanese supermarkets? There's a nice bottle of Jim Beam that comes with a collectors cup for about $10 near by and I'm trying to decide whether I should wait until duty free or grab this bottle.
I'm also off to Thailand for the final leg of my trip, should I just wait until then to buy my alcohol? Is it going to be any cheaper there off the shelf or in duty free?
Thanks guys
Duty Free often doesn't compare to the liquor stores/konbini/supermarkets there.
700ml vodka for 10 bucks is generally great. the whiskey is cheap and awesome. Anything much cheaper than home aswell!
can if you haven't already…. get some Peach Chu-Hi, and them huge 8 or 9% lemon/peach/whatever flavour ones. they're about 2 bucks and gets you seriously toasted after a fair few :)
ORRRRRRRRRRRRR
being OzBargain, you could do what SWIM has done before and buy a large bottle of water, tip the water out of the bottle, fill it up with premium duty free vodka or similar clear liquid (better if it doesnt have much of a scent)
and then coming back to Aus, they'll see its a Pump water or whatever, and let you carry that straight through while also having your own duty free stuff too.
And whisky as iced tea, wine as grape juice …
Nice tip - that being the first part, the second part about the pump water bottle, is a bit over the top, which unfortunately is probably why your otherwise great tip was down voted.
and then coming back to Aus, they'll see its a Pump water or whatever, and let you carry that straight through while also having your own duty free stuff too.
wrong. you can't carry on water on an international flight to or from Oz.
you will be forced to dump it. or skull it at the departure gate.
You can definitely take water on international flights from Perth, you can purchase it after immigration. No problem
Best thing about perth international is you can take an empty water bottle In and fill it up at the bottle fill and take on the plane all for free ,mind you that is the only good thing about perth international .
You miss the point. Its not about taking on free water to the flight. Exactly what you say, many airports allow to to take an EMPTY bottle to the plane, where you can fill this after you pass thru security.
Just like taking duty free alcohol purchased in the airport.
What our friend was proposing was to fill the water bottle with vodka then take it on the plane. The issue is how do the get the vodka thru security in the first place. Pre-filling the bottle doesnt work as this is before security.
Filling it after security is rather pointless as its only with vodka you have bought at the airport duty free and you can take that anyway.
Yes there are some airports that you cant even do that, as they give the alcohol to you at the gate itself.
Airports like Sydney also have bottle filling capability (filtered water) and Singapore which has security at the gate, has water fountains in the gate lounge. (I filled a 1.5 litre bottle at Singapore for my Scoot flight)
lots of countries sell water and duty free after going through customs. Either that or buy your booze locally for 10 dollars a litre and fill it and pack it in a suitcase.
problem solved. ;)
Put the vodka in 10 x 100ml bottles and you can now pass through security.
So cheap booze there, I wonder how bad the law and order situation there. And I am sure road accident counts in hundreds each day. And must have lots of racism as well.
You know, we have perfected it. All bad things are caused by booze only and only solution is to make it more costly. #ThankYouAustralia
I was breathalysed in Chiba city 8 years ago. the police officer asked me to breath in his face so he could smell my breath.
um, ok. if that does it for you….
lol reminds of the time a cop stopped me in Osaka and wanted to check the rego on my bicycle… I thought it was a joke…
bike registration in Japan is a big deal, they were stopping people in the middle of the night with their torches out and checking the registration against the owner list. I'm guessing much like the RTA/cops check license plates against who owns it.
strange thing, but it works!
Japan - a land of paradoxes
whilst you can lose a wallet full of cash and it will be handed in to the police, or leave your house and car unlocked : bicycles and umbrellas are open season for theft.
Umbrellas are dumped on the street in their thousands after each storm. They even have trucks that drive around specifically to collect discarded umbrellas. They only cost between $1 - $5 in convenience stores. I think my family were the only people keeping them because it seemed like a waste not to keep perfectly good $3* umbrellas.
*We paid $3 because all of the cheapies were sold out once it started raining. There was plenty of stock the next day though and we all felt a little ripped off. :(
Yeap… I lived in Osaka for a year, a few years back. Opposite my apato was an alcohol vending machine.. bottles of whiskey and all… I've never once felt threatened and I was in dark alleys at weird hours wandering around often, past drunk, teenagers, etc. My first day back in Australia and someone tried to mug me in the middle of Sydney CBD, in the middle of the day…
:(
yeah, japanese attitude to alcohol.
rock up to work and say you are sick and they look at you as if "quit whinging". Rock up to work and say you are hung over and they look at you and say "awesome, big night?"
my wife and I were getting the last train home one night and whilst waiting mrs altomic did a technicolour yawn on to the tracks. a group of young japanese guys were grinning and like "yeah, cool".
in early 90s/00's in Japan, they pushed a new Alcohol driving related law through, (previously the fine was around 400 dollars….) after this new law came in almost all traffic related incidents involving alcohol you were fined around $5000 and a lot of other crap with it.
the following year alcohol related driving incidents dropped around 27%
meanwhile in Australia…
Thanks for the advice guys. I've never bothered buying duty free alcohol in Japan before and never noticed the prices as it's so cheap everywhere here. I mainly wasn't sure if it would be cheaper in Thailand.. or Malaysia. As my flight back to Oz actually departs KL (Slipped my mind). Air Asia flight.
Dont forget that you can have alcohol when transiting, as long as its not in your carry on luggage.
That meaning its in your checked bags. Just make sure its wrapped up tightly in the middle of the bag so it doesnt get broken.
As others have said, you cannot carry liquids onto flights destined for Australia unless packed in checked baggage. My impression is, from wandering many many times thru duty free shops, that Thailand is cheaper than Malaysia for duty free.
As above for Japan, always great prices. Don't bother with Thailand these days, the duty free there will cost you similar to Australia for the good stuff. You could save if you are just after the ordinary stuff say JB White (but why would you waste your duty free quota on the normal booze??)
Another thing about Thailand, sometimes the stores and duty free do not have great variety. If you are after a specific single malt or really nice scotch, it will usually be hard to find.
I even find generic white label stuff in Thailand just doesn't taste the same (could be my imagination or maybe the coke)
My vote is grab it in Japan, make it part of your cultural experience to wander round and check out some of their bottl'o equivalents, you will have fun. Pack them in your check in case nice n tight and you're sweet!
Don't put them in your carry on at all, they will be confiscated when you fly out of Thailand.
If you take too much into Australia (Over 2.25L) , don't forget you may have to pay duty on the whole amount you have if you get caught, not just what you are over, and fines may apply if they are having a bad day in customs.
Have fun!
Going through Customs you sign a legal document stating that everything you have written on the card is the truth. Although I have been through Customs many times and only once had my bags x-rayed (coming from Thailand), I would strongly recommend not filling out a false declaration.
In Japan I bought a bottle of Vat 69 for 1000 Yen compared to around $34 in Aus.
I bought a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label for 1990 Yen.
Personally, I usually just buy the big 2 litre bottle of Suntory Red Whisky. It is a plastic bottle, so it shouldnt break. And it costs about Y1990, less in some places.
I dont drink it but I can usually palm it off onto someone else. Makes a good present, 2 litres of whiskey lasts a long time for most people.
As others have noted, alcohol is very cheap in Japan due to much lower taxation. It's available pretty much everywhere too (any convenience store, etc).
I spent quite a bit of time in Japan and only once ran into someone thoroughly drunk on a train. The businessman was incredibly friendly as he gave out the contents of his late night snack shopping to me and my group before calling his wife on his mobile phone and having me talk to her. On his exit from the train he fell over and left his foot in the door as it closed. We rescued him before a security guard bear hugged the guy and marched him off. I'm sure I had a rare encounter with a friendly drunk and there are no doubt many who would want a fight at the slightest provocation, but I felt infinitely safer there than I ever do in Australia. Almost all drunks here are highly abusive and looking for the slightest reason to smash your face in.
It is infinitely safer in Japan than in Australia overall. LOL!
People are raised with different morals and the culture is different.
In Japan, they treat you as if you are family.
Rock up to a store in Japan, ask them to pull everything out of the rack, then tell them you don't want anything. They will still bow to you and say "Thank you, please come again". In any other country they'd tell you "F-Off and stop wasting their time".
I remember seeing heaps of times, when people would simply leave their belongings at a train station to go to the toilet, and come back with it still in tact. In Australia, it would have been swiped ages ago.
I thought I lost something in a Hotel before. The staff thought it may have been thrown away, so they got a guy to look through all the trash looking for it. 2hrs later, (Yes he was looking, since i heard alot of shuffling in the maid room) he comes to my room, apologising and bowing saying he couldn't find it.
Where can you get this sort of service in Australia?
You can walk home in Japan at 2AM and you feel safe. Can you do that in Australia without feeling alittle unsafe?
Can you go to a all you can eat place, and leave a LV or Birkin bag at the table, and everybody leaves to grab food? In Japan you can, nobody will swipe your $20,000 bag. Here it will probably be gone by the time you go back to your table.
Bloody Australians……
And they dont have all these people with Tatts either….
If you're in Tokyo i can highly recommend 'World Liquor and Wines’ i visited two of their stores, north Shinjuku and Ginza, both are within 1km of the relative stations.
They have a massive range of mid to high end liquor from all over the world. I picked up a bottle of 30yr old Glenfiddich for $250, Dan Murphy's sells them for $600. Grey goose was $30 for 1L and JD was $30 for 1125ml. The staff were very friendly and helpful and from memory they accept all cards. They also had a big selection of special edition bottles. It was like liquor store heaven.
I flew out of Osaka into the Gold Coast and the selection of alcohol in both terminals was abysmal.
The street price for Bourbons and whiskeys are like 50% cheaper in Japan than what we are paying at DM here. I was there a few months back and being a whiskey drinker, I was interested to check out street price. Just to give you a few examples:
Makers Mark 1999Y or AUD$20
Jim Beam White Label 999Y or AUD$10
Remy Martin VSOP 2999Y or AUD$30
Johnie Walker Black 1999Y or AUD$20
Hakushu Single Malt Whiskey 3900Y or AUD$40.
Since you are after a gift pack (free glass), I would just them here. Less chance of a breakage.
I find Japan Duty free prices are very similar to street price as per above.