you do not get charged for forwarding.

the person who is calling your Local number in the states or where ever you are from will get charged local calling fee's Not long distance.

so it would be like if they were calling your cell phone at home or some one local.

I can see how this is very useful for long term stays in Japan, but what about a holiday of say a week or two? Traveling in other countries I found getting my phone working pretty useful, as members of our group ended up splitting up in shopping districts etc., and someone always inevitably gets lost or is late for whatever reason. I'd probably mostly be using my phone for short 'where are you?' type messages/calls to other people I'm traveling with rather than calls home, so shouldn't rack up too much of a bill.

For a short holiday would renting a phone be a better option? Sorry if this is a dumb question =P

just enable the international roaming on your local phone, i don't think you need to buy another one here. For more details contact your local phone provider :D

Really? I thought phones from other countries don't really work there? Mine isn't 3G...

you have to get a phone that is enable to go internationally

but its not worth it.

my uncle was in vietnam, and used 54 some minutes on his black berry to call back home.

he throught few hundred bucks for the bill..

end up being 750 somthing dollars.

ridiculous, i just bring my mylo with me and find a hotspot.

Another great Tip is
if you DO have a mylo or a skype phone (mylos like 250 skype phone is 100)

you can pretty much go into any wifi place and make a call..

i dont really have to say, that japan has tons of wifi areas.

esp in fast food places and star bucks.

Myeah, my phone is quite old-school and I don't think it will have cool features like that... in China and Vietnam I got a local prepaid sim card, but it doesn't look like it will work with the ones in Japan. Looks like I'll have to rent one then.

Ok, i still have some questions to it.
Wouldn´t it be cheaper to just buy a used phone for some bucks and than buy a prepaid card?

Second: i dont quite understand how you managed that you friends can call you for free (or local tarif) on your phone.
Now i get this local number. The homepage from Skype says that then my friends could call me for the local price on my skype. But now we are still on my computer, so i would have to be online to take calls (wich is free when they use skype). If i understand right you forwarded you skype account to you japanese mobile phone, so that if you are not online all the calls will got to you phone. And theres my problem. When i want to forward my skype to any mobile, I will have to pay for every minute. How did u manage that? Is there a trick?
Wouldnt it be easier to just let your friends and family call you through their skype on their homecomputer? So you would be the only one paying around 30 cent per minute, but it would be free for your friends.

Thanks in advance
Dennis

Is it Japan that has tons of wifi places, or Tokyo? I never saw a Starbucks when I was in Japan, but I'm sure there are more now. But are they only in Tokyo or can you find tons of hotspots in smaller towns and cities too? Would the Mos Burger in some inaka town, for instance, theoretically also be wifi-equipped?

In my experience, when it comes to certain things like that, Tokyo sometimes follows 1 set of rules, the rest of Japan another. And if I ever return to Japan for a visit, it would be exclusively to the Kansai area, I probably would never set foot in Tokyo.

I have a question.. If I sign up for the prepaid service.. Do I have to pay for the handset too? Or can I use the ones that I have been using until now.. it is Nokia 6600 which is not 3G by the way..