How to get a taxi in Tokyo, Japan

In Tokyo, taxi cabs cruise around the streets looking for people to pick up. So all you need to do is stand close to the street, look for an unoccupied car, and wave your arm around a bit. If the taxi driver sees you, he (for it is almost always a he) will often turn on the hazard warning lights and steer towards you. When the cab gets up to you, the rear left door (the one facing the sidewalk, since Japan drives on the left) will open automatically by hydraulics. You get in, and when everyone's safely inside the car, the door closes automatically. Same for when you get off. Thus, you never need to bother opening/closing the rear door.

In Tokyo, if you turn on your hazard lights you're allowed to do anything, break any traffic rule, block traffic, and just be generally completely irresponsible. So don't worry if you hail a car that is far away and needs to cross a large number of high-traffic lanes, including bus-only lanes and pedestrian lanes, to get to where you are - for he'll do it. The same is true for when getting off.

Outside stations you'll most often find a dedicated taxi waiting area with a line of taxi cabs queuing up to pick up passengers as well as passengers queuing up to get on the taxis. Queuing in Japan is usually quite orderly, but beware of old people who think they have all the rights in the world to cut in front of youngsters. If you see one of these queuing areas, there will most likely be no point in trying to hail another taxi in the station traffic area, since the taxis drivers are cooperative about who gets the customers. It's always the taxi at the front of the taxi queue that gets to pick up customers.

This can mean that if you're at a large station (and there are huge stations in Tokyo!), sometimes you might have to walk quite a bit to reach the front of the line of taxis queuing up, even though there are empty cars all along the sidewalk. Usually each major exit of a station has its own taxi pick-up spot. So if you're at a busy station, it might actually make sense to get out through a smaller exit and pick up a taxi in a small alleyway instead.

Beware: taxi drivers in Japan essentially never speak any English, at all! (Unlike in my native Sweden, but same as New York - or so I've heard.) Nevertheless, they are usually quite friendly towards foreigners. Since all taxi cabs in Tokyo have GPS navigation, the best way of making sure you get to where you want to go is to bring the address written down in Japanese and show it to the driver. Even if the driver doesn't know the place, the GPS navigation system will. He will most likely first set off in the general direction of where you want to go, then input the location into the navigation system when stopping for red lights or traffic jams. I would not recommend bringing a map and pointing to where you want to go, since for some reason map reading skills are, in my experience, extraordinarily bad in Japan.