Tokyo is often described by its "foreign visitors" as impenetrable, bewildering, a mess; without the requisite Japanese language skills, it's impossible to really get to know this city. But when we call Tokyo "impenetrable" we are comparing it to our home cities where things are familiar and comprehensible. To the Japanese who go abroad, it is our home cities that are bewildering. Which is why, in those cities as in Tokyo, city guides for the foreigner are blossoming. One such guide is LondonZok ("Zok" is from zoku, a Japanese word meaning group or tribe), a free monthly guide to London culture catering to the 80,000 or so Japanese in London at any one time.

Founded in September 1998 by siblings Laurence and Christina Macadam, LondonZok is a shamelessly classy free paper written mostly in Japanese, covering art, music, fashion, food and cinema - the raison d'etre for most of the Japanese flocking to "swinging" London. Attracted by a supposed similarity between one island nation and another, a vibrant arts and nightlife scene, fashion, music, the opportunity to learn English, the freedom of being a gaijin and the general hype surrounding the city, London has become the destination of choice for style-conscious students and tourists alike, over and above abunai New York (despite crime figures which suggest London is now more dangerous).

Born in Kyoto to a Japanese mother and an Anglo-Argentinian father, Laurence and Christina grew up true blue British. It was not until they returned to Japan in their early twenties that they really got in touch with their Japanese heritage. "We had been based outside of Japan for so long our language skills were really suffering," recalls Laurence. "It felt like a part of us or our heritage was missing." So they enrolled in an intense one year language recovery program at Sophia University. It was then that they rediscovered their passion for Japan, and their one year in Tokyo was extended to three.

Having messed around in various banking and industry jobs they variously describe as "dull," "mind-numbing," and "a waste of time," when they returned to London, Laurence had an idea to start a magazine for Japanese gaijin in London along the lines of what's available to Western gaijin in Tokyo. Teaming up with an old university friend, they got a loan, dumped their jobs and took the plunge into the publishing pool - into the deep end.

Christina had worked for a publishing firm in Tokyo for a while, but apart from that they were swimming blind. "If we had had experience we wouldn't have done it. There is absolutely no way," says Laurence. "I mean looking back we were just so naive. I didn't even know what a font was. We knew nothing about the printing process or that it was so complex. I really thought it was like using Word - just type it in and hey presto."

What they produced was a startlingly high quality magazine. The premise is a sort of TC meets Time Out: A free (monthly) guide to London culture, listing events, reviewing restaurants, uncovering the city for the readers. "There seemed to be an unwritten rule in England that free magazines had to look as horrible as possible," says Christina, a rule which they wanted to change to appeal to their discerning readers and advertisers alike. It was in stark contrast to the two other Japanese language publications available in London, both dour affairs catering to the expat salaryman, more interested in life back in Japan than in life in London. "That was the thing we wanted to focus on," says Laurence. "London. To me it seemed like a weird concept that people come to London and all they get is news from Japan."

Having an enthusiastic readership allows LondonZok to have a highly focused style that was strikingly illustrated by the covers of early issues. "We wanted to create a definite style," says Laurence. "So we came up with this concept for the covers where we would just go up to Camden Town or somewhere with this big colored background and a piece of fruit and we'd stop random Japanese in the street and ask them to cover model for us there and then! It was great. I mean, the Japanese are the only people you could do this with because they're all so well dressed all the time. And it gave us a very strong identity early on."

With only three full-time staff at their Notting Hill office, producing a monthly magazine is still incredibly time-consuming, although now they are over the teething problems. "The first three to five months were hell," remembers Laurence. "We were working till 2am seven days a week. The third issue we got a computer virus and three days before going to print everything just disappeared off the computer - these kind of things happened all the time." But with their dedication and that of their part-time staff, which includes an ex-editor of Pia magazine, things are getting better every month. "We don't really have any guiding principles," says Christina, "except for the magazine to be good and interesting to read and look at."

Although Laurence and Christina feel more at home in London now, for them more than most, Japan is in their blood and they hope to return soon. "Personally we prefer Tokyo as a city," Laurence says. "In an ideal world we'd like to have six months in Tokyo and six here." For the moment they are tied into this project, although that's not a hardship, says Christina: "It's not down to a T yet as I suppose you're always trying to get better and better. I still think of it as a luxury that we're able to have our own business and be doing something we really feel enthused by. It was seriously rewarding when we first saw someone on the tube reading it from cover to cover. It's nice to know you're helping people in your own little way."