Do you want to live in Japan?

[Harold Eastwood]

[ Message temporarily off-line ]  

[Mimasaka]

You sure do hate Wal-Mart, Dirky.  

[steph9338]

I wanna go to Japan one day since i'm gonna travel around the world. Of course, i have to get a job first. but i will definately go there. i'm learning japanese,  

[Nightwind-Dragon]

I want to visit first then see if I want to live there.  

[Akira_Hoshino]

I went to Japan last year and didn't want to come back. After I graduate I'm postponing college to spend a year as an exchange student at a Japanese HS. I'd like to do it again in college but probably it'll be too expensive to do it twice. Then I want to teach english in Japanese schools. Native English speaking teachers are in demand over there and the pay is great. smile

Brief responses:

Okinawa isn't exactly backwater. There are some rural towns but don't judge it by what you see in The Karate Kid. If you join the military and get stationed in Okinawa like a friend of mine was, that's great. They are bilingual in Okinawa - Japanese and English - and it's absolutely gorgeous. My other friend who is half-Japanese and went to college there is now getting married to her Japanese college friend.

As far as language is concerned, having a good general knowledge of Japanese is absolutely essential unless you're going with a tour guide. Last year I went with a guide, but we had many free days and parts of days for our own excursions. I was one of 4 people out of 45 excluding the guide who spoke the language well enough to communicate, and it's not an exaggeration to say that my group would have been in a real jam without me. We had a leaky toilet, undersized shoes and yukatas, needed more food, directions, needed cabs, needed to buy tickets to museums (THAT was a huge affair and my brain almost exploded), needed to buy train tickets and figure out which car to catch, needed to buy food...

It's true that in the big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto you'll find that a lot of store employees are adept at English. But those people usually work in the biggest tourist attractions, which are fun to visit but not the real attraction of Japan. That's the street venders, local shops and restaurants. They rarely speak English in those places. Taxi drivers know nada. In the traditional ryokan we stayed in, Ikedaya, nobody spoke English AT ALL. So yes, if you intend to do a lot you should definitely have a handle on the language.

As far as money is concerned, yen is not worth "crap" in comparison to American money. Lawlz! One dollar is worth roughly 100 yen. That may seem like a huge difference, but it's not because the prices of the items are higher. Jeans are incredibly expensive. I brought $400 spending money for a 9 day trip and spent all but $20 of it. eek A little toy might cost 300 yen and you're like, "Ooh, it's so cute and it's only three dollars!" Then once you buy it you realize, "... That would be a Happy Meal toy in the U.S..." So while the monetary value is different, Japan is still quite on the expensive side to live in.  

[ponponpon way x2]

Archeology will probably bring me to Japan at some point in my life, so I can wait, and it would be a bit like visiting. When that day comes, way later in my life, I will try very hard not to run into any Japanese pranks. -.-" Funny, but dangerous, painful, or embarrasing, maybe all of those, if you're the one who gets pranked. ^ ^"  

[+[Baby~Onigiri]+]

Yes, i'd love to go and maybe live there someday when i'm older and learn to speak the language, the closest i've been to Japan was the Phillipines or maybe Hong Kong? I suck at geography I know sweatdrop  

[xHelloxDollFacex]

I want to live there, but is to spensive....i don't know...is a great place..but if it where like before..get it?...like in Rk yesssss.....  

[imadoki_idgit]

I would love to live there some day.... sweatdrop but I have a long way to go on the whole language.  

[Lost in Fiction]

i would like to visit there someday...but for now im into trying japanese foods..something i can do at home smile . I think harajuku (spelling?) would be an interesting place to visit. I would really like to get my hair done over there too...the Jrock stars have such cool hair.  

[samuraichikX]

i'd love to visit it someday, maybe not live mainly cuz i dont know the language all that well, but because the housing is sooo expensive, but i'd just love to visit there, from what my uncle's told me it sounds awesome  

[randomshoes77]

I'm going the summer I graduate high-school. (I'm hoping)

Me and my best friend have this whole thing figured out. And were going to meet Watsuki too... because we said so. And when I do I'm going to squeel like the fangirl I am. mrgreen

And I love sushi ^^

And I've heard they have amazing hotsprings there.

Though you know what's funny? I was just watch "Jackass: The Movie" the other day, and half of their stupid stunts were in Japan right? Well whenever they randomly stripped and danced around in nothing but a speedo or something weird like that, the Japanese people there would just try to completely ignore them and shoveled their way around them.

It was hilarious xd

So my general assumption is that you have to be a very calm and patient person if you're Japanese. I mean, if that happened to someone in the U.S., someone would probably punch them in the face.  

[Silent Drifter]

Na, I stick with the USA, but if money was no object, I'll probally visit japan, and I would like to learn the language as well.  

[Azure Kite Virus]

I am currently learning Japanese and I would love to live there and become a manga artist.  

[ObSesSeDwithKeNsHiN730]

I'm not sure if I'd be able to learn Japanese well enough to live there, though I really would love to take a long visit there! It's supposed to beautiful. One of these years I am going to go there for a summer and take kenjutsu classes.^_^