Postcard to Japan

March 11, 2013 2:33 PM

I want to send a postcard from France to this restaurant in Japan where my friend is a cook. There appears to be an address on the front page of the website, but I'll be damned if I can make out what it says, much less recreate it on a postcard in a way that the French post can parse. I'm sure I could ask him myself, but I would prefer to surprise him. Can anyone help me with this?
posted by Evstar to grab bag (9 answers total)

Can you save it as an image and then print it on a label?
posted by hmo at 2:38 PM on March 11

Trip Advisor gives this address for AW Kitchen Laplantina:

AW kitchen Laplatina Shirokane

2-3-23 Shirokane
Minato
Tokyo Prefecture 108-0072
Japan

If it's a unique restaurant, that might help?
posted by yoink at 2:39 PM on March 11

Or just save and print out the address, then just write Japon on the bottom - French post should only need the country name, then the Japanese post can take it from there
posted by runincircles at 2:42 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

I have had no problems mailing items to Japan with the address written in English letters. So I would just use yoink's address.
posted by florencetnoa at 2:49 PM on March 11

By the way, for what it's worth, if you plug that address into Google Maps, you'll end up just a few feet down the street from a building with "AW Kitchen" on its exterior (it's rather subtle lettering, so you may have to look. It's the building at these coordinates:35.642939, 139.733022.
posted by yoink at 2:54 PM on March 11

Wikipedia tells you to use the format:
Tokyo Central Post Office
5-3, Yaesu 1-Chome
Chuo-ku, Tokyo 100-8994

yoink's address matches what Google translate produces on the website. Realistically, though, they'll figure it out. I think it works out to
[Restaurant Name]
3-23, Shirokane 2-Chome
Minato-ku, Tokyo [postcode]

But there are Mefites in Japan who can read Japanese, so someone will know.
posted by hoyland at 2:57 PM on March 11

Everyone has been pretty close, except this appears to be a restaurant in a multilevel building. Here is how I would write it:

Laplatina
Takanawa Duplex, 1F
2-3-23 Shirokane
Minato-ku
Tokyo 108-0072
JAPON

FWIW, whenever I send mail to Japan, I write the address in Japanese and just write JAPAN in English under it so the US postal service knows what country it is heading to. Since you are in France, writing "JAPON" will serve this purpose. All the French postal service needs to be able to read is the country is heading to; it doesn't need to read the street address. If you can print a label, you can just do:

〒108-0072
東京都港区白金2-3-23
高輪デュープレックス1F
ラプラティーナ
JAPON

And yes, print the label if you are going to write the address in Japanese to make sure it is written properly. Don't forget to put your friend's name on it, of course. I suggest you write it in all caps.
posted by Tanizaki at 3:09 PM on March 11 [5 favorites]

This seems to be the ticket. If anyone has anything else to add, go for it. Thanks to all for their advice.
posted by Evstar at 3:24 PM on March 11

My go-to reference for this kind of thing is Frank's Compulsive Guide to Postal Addresses. It's largely focused on mailing from the U.S. to other countries, but most of the advice is still pertinent to mailing from other countries. In particular, the section on Japan reads as follows:

Mail to Japan can be addressed in Roman letters, with address lines written top to bottom in minor-to-major order. These mail pieces are sorted by hand upon arrival to Japan, where postal scanners handle only Kanji and Kana addresses written in major-to-minor order.

posted by Johnny Assay at 8:07 PM on March 11 [2 favorites]