I've been to Japan a few times, visited the usual spots Tokyo, Kyotoa, Osaka, Nara and stayed on the island Okinawa too. Can't really comment on the car auction side of things, but other things I can
Its a great place and its literally the closest you can get to visit the planet Mars on Earth.
Food:
The food is actually lovely, alot of deep fried stuff, which I personally love, its not all raw fish everywhere. In hotels in the mornings, they generally will have 2 breakfast styles ; western and asian. In the western breakfasts, its an all you can eat scrambled eggs, rashers, sausages, fruit , cereals etc. No black or white pudding though For lunch I used to just go to a Lawsons or 7eleven shop, where they have all sorts of ready meals and again up at the deal deep fried chicken. They have microwaves behind the till, and will nuke your meals for ya. For drinks, there are vending machines everywhere and I mean literally everywhere, you will never struggle to find one. They serve hot & cold drinks but some also will have cans of beer. Bear in mind, the fancier vending machines now look for a special Japanese ID to check your age for beer, but in most cases they don't.
For dinner at night then, I personally couldn't get enough of COCO Curry House franchise, feckin lovely chicken Katsu curries. drool. But try loads of different places and if you're completely stuck look out for your standard American fastfood places.
Weather:
Its coming to the end of Tsunami season, so between September and November, its actually pretty livable weather. Not too humid. Be grand in a pair of shorts ! but have a jacket in case it rains.
Driving:
No one tailgates, everyone obeys the speed limit. So just sitback and relax. Any of the filling stations I went to were those automated ones, which can be a bit confusing, but generally there will be some old dude there to help out. Thats one thing you will notice alot of actually, elderly people working. You'll also need an international drivers permit before renting a car over there. The AA can sort that out for ya.
Money:
Cash is king, they can be a bit odd when it comes to credit cards. I did find an ATM that let me use my BOI card over there, so you won't be completely stuck. But do bring cash and not travelers cheques etc. You are very very unlikely to be robbed, and same goes for your hotel room, so don't be too paranoid about it.
Generally speaking the place is spotless, in Tokyo and the other major cities, its nice and high tech, with all sorts of modern and beyond stuff for seemly mundane things, like vending machines. However once you are outside the cities, its alot more rural. Roads will be grand as such, but you will come across the hole in the ground jacks alot more. They have tonnes of truck stop style places though, which will have everything you could want food & jacks wise !
Bring a laptop, and if it doesn't have an ethernet port, get a usb one. All the hotels I stayed in didn't have wireless, and as such your phone was useless. Instead I brought along an apple airport express, and would plug that into the wired connection, and then have my own wireless network.
You could literally spend 3 weeks alone wandering around Tokyo - its the equivalent of 14 major cities in size. But if I only had say 3 days there, I'd head to Odaiba island in Tokyo. It has the huge Toyota City place, where you can wander around everything. Then on the same island play Initiald D arcade in a Trueno mounted to the machine. I'd also recommend Akihabara on a Saturday, its computer land, full of arcades and gizmos and does have car meets there too. Finally HaraJuku for the bat sh*t crazy people.
So in short
Eat this stuff
If you feel ill - give this stuff a go
Don't get upset if you see something like this
And try and have a go on this
