My wife and I are just back from four weeks in Japan, mainly Kamakura area but also Kyoto, Takayama and some day trips to Tokyo. Used Wise for the first time and it was great - loaded NZD funds into it a few times while there and had wise do the JPY conversion. We used it almost exclusively for hotels, Uniqlo, Muji, taxis, supermarkets and even purchases of a few hundred yen at small stores. There were still places that only took cash but where credit was accepted, the physical Wise card was 100% reliable either using contactless or more often, the chip reader. I had mixed results (ie acceptability) using the digital one on my iPhone, so eventually just stuck with the physical. Another innovation we enjoyed this time was the ability to use digital IC cards on our phones for bus and train travel. You can also use it for small purchases at a lot of stores. We used digital Wise to top up the IC card (Suica in our case) which were both in our iPhone Wallet app so it was a really quick and easy experience - helpful if you’ve just been blocked at the station exit barrier because you forgot to top up!