John wrote:

It was interesting to see that in Tokyo where there are millions of cyclist
getting around, and with great respect from cars and pedestrians unlike
Australia that seems to hate Cyclists guts.
Anyway an interesting thing I saw was that many bikes were getting parking
tickets for parking in an illegal area, and what I made out was that you get
some sort of warning for a few hours, and after that a huge truck comes
along and gets your bike and impounds it, and I saw the impoundment yard
full of bikes, and a sign saying the penalty is a 6,000 yen or about $60 to
get your bike back.
Amazing.
Also its amazing that you can leave your bike outside your apartment
overnight unlocked and still find it there in the morning, again unlike
Australia.

I was under the impression that most bikes in Japan have immobilisers
(though I'm not sure what part is immobilised) so you lock the bike
itself, rather than chaining it to something fixed.

I was also told by a friend who lived in Japan for several years, that
if you see a bike that looks like yours, you take it, and rest assured
that when the correct owner finds it missing, he or she will just take
yours or somebody else's that also looks the same, and everyone is
happy.

I have no idea how much of this is true!

Tam