Tokyo surged past Seoul to become the most expensive city in Asia for foreigners. And Beijing is now more expensive than New York City. Those looking to live the good life in Beijing had better have fat wallets. Maintaining a business-class lifestyle in the 2008 Summer Olympics’ host city now costs more than living in New York City for the first time since 2004. In the booming Chinese capital, a cup of coffee and an international newspaper at the start of your workday will set you back $10.60, compared with $5.75 in the Big Apple.
But that's nothing compared to Tokyo, where rent on a luxury two-bedroom unfurnished apartment goes for a whopping $5,128.84 a month, uncooked spaghetti costs more than twice as much as in New York, and domestic cleaning help runs at $18.46 an hour.
That's enough to make Tokyo Asia's most expensive city, according to Mercer's 2008 Cost of Living Survey, released July 24. The firm conducts the survey to guide multinationals and governments on devising pay packages for their employees abroad. It takes New York as the base, against which all other cities are compared on a cost of living index that factors costs of housing, food, transport, clothing, household goods and entertainment. About 200 items, ranging from a burger to dry cleaning, comprise the "basket of goods" evaluated in 26 Asian cities.