Virgin Atlantic has become the first airline to lay on a complimentary helicopter transfer for its Upper Class passengers between Tokyo’s Narita International Airport and the center of the city.

Around 75 km to the east of Tokyo, Narita is infamous for its remoteness and poor links to the heart of the metropolis.

New bus and train links have reduced the time required to make the transfer to under an hour, but Virgin has realized there would be solid demand for a faster and more efficient method of beating the traffic.

A monster bluefin tuna sold for a record 396,000 dollars in the year’s first auction at the world’s biggest fish market in Tokyo Wednesday amid intense pre-dawn bidding.

The 342-kilogramme (752-pound) fish — caught off Japan‘s northern island of Hokkaido — fetched a winning bid of 32.49 million yen (396,000 dollars).

It was the highest such bid yet, topping the previous record of 20.02 million yen paid for a bluefin tuna in 2001, the officials said.

Tokyo is now the city with the most Michelin three-star rated restaurants in the world trumping Paris, once considered the gastronomic capital of the world.

The Tokyo metropolitan area, which unseated Paris from the No. 1 spot and this year, the number of three-star restaurants increased from 11 to 14.

The total number of restaurants rated in the Tokyo guide was 266 — with 54 two-star rated venues and 198 one-star rated venues.

To celebrate its fifth anniversary, the five-star Mandarin Oriental Tokyo hotel is offering the opportunity to rent the entire property for one night for $670,000.

Under the plan, the entire hotel – 178 guest rooms, all nine restaurants and all spas — would be reserved from 3:00 in the afternoon to noon the next day.

There will also be the option to have a cocktail party for 500 people featuring pastries from an award-winning Japanese pastry chef.

Walt Disney’s animated characters Stitch and his girlfriend Angel made of pure gold are displayed at the jewelry shop Ginza Tanaka in central Tokyo.

Made with about 280 grams of pure gold, the 15cm high figure is priced at 5 million yen ($57,000).

A monster tuna caught off Japan turned heads at a Tokyo fish market Friday, where the 445 kilogram (981 pound) bluefin – the biggest caught here since 1986 — sold for 3.2 million yen (36,700 dollars).

“Many of the people who work at the market have never seen a tuna that big,” said an official of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which runs the Tsukiji fish market, the world’s biggest seafood market.