[tlug] Google maps and Japanese addresses

[Dave M G <dave@example.com>]

TLUG,

First... happy new year! Hope you all are enjoying the holidays.

Okay, my first question of the new year:

I've recently discovered that an awesome feature of my Android phone is
that I can click on an address in my contact list and go straight to
Google Maps, where I can then use GPS to coordinate where I am with
where I need to go. Gone are the days of getting confusing verbal
descriptions from the nearest station!

So I've been wanting to make sure all my friends addresses are in my
Google contacts.

And here's where I hit a snag. Basically, if I put in an address without
an apartment in it, it works. But if I have an apartment building name
and room number, Google defaults to a map of North America (which is
weird since my account is in Japanese... but that's another issue).

So this format works:
〒100-0000
東京都渋谷谷区近所名1-1-1

But this doesn't:
〒100-0000
東京都渋谷谷区近所名1-1-1
アパートビル名＃100

This might be just a Google problem, but I thought I would ask here if
this might be a problem with how I've formatted the address.

I looked online, in places like here:
http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/addresses.html

... but it doesn't seem like I'm doing anything obviously wrong.

So should I complain to Google (not that they're that great at
listening), or is there an addressing format that is both complete and
that you guys have found works with Google Maps?

Any tips much appreciated.

-- 
Dave M G