At first it can be daunting. The signs are not in English in most places and hard to understand. Based on my experience, I have now concluded 4 things:

1. Don’t bother on the street as most locations only allow 60 minutes.

2. The price is Y300 per 30 minutes everywhere. (Roughly $6.50 and hour)

3. There is a lot more parking in Tokyo than I would have thought. The GPS is awesome at helping you find a parking lot. Without the GPS? Good luck.

4. There are two types of parking; the traditional parking lot where you pull into a spot and a little flap pops up and locks your tire into place until you pay. The other type is the robot/tower parking.

This usually involves a circle (which flips your car around) and some form of stackable parking.

This is what a parking “tower” looks like. It is filled with cars.

You pull into the parking garage (note the circle, it flips your car around).

And here is where it is stored. I have been wondering what it looks like inside one of these parking machines. It was the first time I could ever take a shot. Now I know …

A vertical parking lot. Cool.