Last December, it felt like every day was a banquet at the sharehouse where I live in Tokyo. On the Sunday before Christmas, we snacked on snow crab shabu-shabu. On Christmas Eve, we sliced up a whole smoked chicken. On New Year’s Day, we savored wagyu sirloin steaks. And throughout, we savored top-quality shochu and shockingly sweet mikan, a clementine-like fruit beloved throughout Japan. The kicker? All of this was effectively free. It may sound too good to be true, but anyone who pays Japanese taxes can enjoy treats like…
