James Farmer comments

I go to Gold's. Some branches are definitely better than others, but it isn't 16,500 a month. The monthly fee for single-gym membership is only 10,800 yen. It was 10,500 until the sales tax increase, I believe. For a couple extra thousand a month you can be a Master Member, or whatever they call it, and use any of their gyms. Pretty sure it is still cheaper than 16,500.

@inkochi

When I went there two years ago, the route is not open to the public. You had to use the public transportation, so no chance of traffic jams. People jams during GW on the other hand...

Docomo has been unlocking SIMs since summer 2010. And, you wait six months. They unlocked my Galaxy S2 the day I bought it. And, when I bought the S4, they unlocked it the day I got it. It just cost 3000 yen plus tax. So, the only big difference for Docomo users now seems to be that it will be free.

I have used my unlocked Galaxies in well over a dozen countries using locally bought SIMs. The only time I had a problem was with THREE in the UK, but O2 worked no problems.