Working at a cafe for hours in Japan will get you dirty looks. Caffice is still a regular cafe, but they actually encourage you to spend a couple hours there on your computer.
Caffice is a coffee shop that's about a five minute walk from Shinjuku Station in Tokyo. It has free WiFi (and LAN plugins), food, drink, and even alcohol. It was my second stop on a week-long quest to find great places in Tokyo where you can sit down and work.
Earlier in the morning, I worked from a nearby Shinjuku co-working space, Base Point, which turned out well. After that I moved on to Brooklyn Parlor, having heard that they offer free WiFi and a nice environment to work from (that was a bust, though they did have free WiFi).
After that, I came to Caffice, where I was able to spend two guilt-free hours typing all kinds of garbage on my iPad.
Those are important words for me: "guilt-free."
In Tokyo, space comes at a premium. And when it comes to the nomadic work life, there just aren't as many options as there are in the US. Places like Base Point are perfect, because you pay for the time you are there. Caffice was more like a normal cafe, though I never felt rushed, and there were plenty of people around me working or studying on their laptops.
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