http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/27/japan-shocked-by-marijuan_n_170568.html
Brutal - Well, if you’re a foreigner, and you’re caught, that’s instant deportation for you (and prolly lifelong ban), and probably eventual deportation for any foreigners you’re with (as well as a ban for however many years).
Japan is in full on “Reefer Madness” mode right now. Shit is not a joke.
I’d like to think that at some point reason will prevail and some people will figure out that pot is not the crazy dangerous substance Japanese people seem to think it is, but it’s possible that they’ll keep going hard on it to the point of a Singapore style society.
The prices here are an extortion at best:
$70 a gram.
Important question relating to Key Money i.e., Rent deposit.
Do any of you guys who currently reside in Japan know the average cost of rent deposit for an apartment? I ask this because one of the recruiting companies I plan on applying for stated this:
Subsidized, comprehensive health insurance partly covered by employer, offered at discount rates for all full-time employees.
- Free online Japanese lessons.
- Generous vacation package, including all public holidays and the winter school holiday periods for all Full-Time ALT positions. All positions are in rural areas, no tokyo placements.
Accommodation 15,000 - 80,000/month
Average: 50,000/month
Teacher pays for key money
Airfare
Teacher pays
Teach Away assists teachers with finding an affordable flight
I saw a few foreigners at the SFIV national tournament at Big Box last Saturday. Just wondering if it was any of you guys who post on here? I didnt even realize it was going on and just went there to play casuals cuz I went to Mikado first and there was no one playing GG lol! It was pretty cool though. I wish I would have known about it before hand. Does anyone have a full schedule of all the national tournaments so I can plan to go to another one in the future next time its near by? Thanks
It’s often not a deposit. Instead consider it a gift/bribe to the landlord to let you stay there. The prices I’ve been told by friends to expect for key money range from 1-3 months rent. The guys who are there can probably help you more than I can.
Yeah, the average is probably around $2-3K. Could be less, could be more, just depends on how nice/new/convenient the place is. For rural areas though I’d guess around $2-3K.
Just remember that you’ll have to pay deposit PLUS key money in many (but not all) cases. If it’s not to your liking you can always ask (nicely) to get rid of one or the other. That happened with my last place in Tokyo… they wanted 2 months deposit plus 2 months key money. I said you’re getting one or the other, but not both, and they agreed.
I’ve been calling around for you:
Kyoto University Hospital = Doesn’t think so
Kyoto Second Red Cross Hospital (Kyoto Daini Sekijyuji Byoin) = Doesn’t know
Japan Baptist Hospital = No
Kyoto City Hospital (Kyoto Shiritsu Byoin) = Spoke to a physician there. He was not sure, was asked to call between 8:30-11:30 as they MIGHT have one.
You can try calling AMDA English line at 06-4395-0555 (They’re closed right now though (8:30pm))
I gave up on Kyoto and called locally (Kobe is only 20 mins from Osaka so hope you don’t mind taking the trip)
First call was a success!
Kobe Central Municipal Hospital (Kobe Chuo Shimin Byoin)
Tel: (078) 302-4321
4-6 Minatojima-Nakamachi, Chuo-ku, Kobe
The guy said that they have an English speaking dermatologist. He works 9:00am-5:00pm.
Hope that helps! :tup:
That site is misleading. You’d think it was a list of English-speaking hospitals, but it’s just a list of hospitals in English…
Ahh, thanks guys. I appreciate the quick replies. I’m looking to have around $1,100 by the end of february which is still a long way from 2k, but I’m hoping that the company I eventually work with covers that area. If I’m not mistaken, most of the eikaiwa’s pay for your airfare (return fare) and your key money as well. All you do is pay rent, I’m not 100% on this though.
I’m coming out of college with a 3 year advanced diploma, but it looks like it may not be enough even with a 1 year advanced diploma from another private college i atteneded…ughhh:crybaby: … Not giving up hope though, because if there is a will, there is a way…:china:
OMG, thank you so much!! I’ve been trying to find one all week with no luck. Kobe is a little far, but I don’t mind 
Glad to help my fellow SRKers.
Well, give Kyoto City Hospital a call, since they said they might have one. Could save you a trip, hopefully. (The nurses sounded hot too…)
Kyoto City Hospital (Kyoto Shiritsu Byoin)
Tel: (075) 311-5311
1-2 Higashi Takada-cho, Mibu, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto
If you end up going to Kobe, make sure you call ahead. You will have to do some registration stuff so have all your shiz with you and maybe plan a day for it just in case. Let me know if you need anything else.
lol i wish there’s an english speaking clinic/hospital near my place… went to a japanese clinic the other day… doc told me to chill/manage stress better or if i cant do that, go to the mental clinic/psychiatrist(LOL NOES) and… LOSE SOME WEIGHT… luckily i only paid 820yen (didnt prescribe me anything, just a checkup)…
It was all about the SPICE until it was made illegal in November. =(
I mean, paying $35 USD for 3g of bud in Tokyo. What a wacky idea!!! Those were the golden days…
First it was legal mushrooms, then legal research chems, then legal SPICE (which was a lovely cover-up for ‘herbal incense’ that actually contained THC alkaloids. basically, it was the true sticky-icky, hence it’s eventual illegality)… We’ll see what new substance starts making the rounds…
Addendum:
A lot of people smoke weed is a little bit of an overstatement. However, it is not as “uncommon” as it may have been 5 or 10 years ago. You would never bring up the topic of any kind of controlled substance with a person before shrewdly assessing their personality (e.g. if you’re talking to a dude who hits up outdoor psy-trance festivals every weekend, there’s a good chance you can broach the subject without fear of being shunned). In Japanese class, I mentioned how heroin is considered a very addictive substance (not from experience), and my teacher quickly responded, “well, I have nothing to do with that sort of thing.” Which I replied with, “This is just common knowledge taught in American high schools. I, myself, am not a user.”
The Japanese 20 and 30 year olds, that generation, has started to embrace alternate mind states.
Not to mention, there are quite a few headshops here selling very crafty pipes, bongs, hookahs, filters, and other paraphernalia for that “wacky tobaccy” you be smokin’.
If you want to make some friends very quickly, bring us some blotter.
Anywho, if you are at all into psycho-pharmacopeia in Japan (and residing in Japan), then PM me. My Japanese & foreign friends alike call me the walking pharmacist.
So it’s looking like I’m gonna pull a nice chunk of my money back from the government this year, and I’m very seriously considering a trip to Japan.
Things I really want to do:
Akihabara day - I wanna see this place, check out some arcades, buy some crap.
GO - I want to spend a couple hours playing GO. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve played regularly, but if I’m there I at least want to get into a ko-fight.
Visit a Shinto shrine
Bullet-Train - there’s plenty of places to go, I think a jaunt to Kyoto to walk the Path of Philosophy would be nice.
Sake - I want to drink a bottle or 4 of some nice Junmei while singing karaoke, badly. (I’m 31, I should fit in with the salarymen…)
Language - I’ve put in about 40 hours of Japanese study… which means I can read hiragana, katakana, and a couple fistfulls of kanji. My biggest problem is listening/speaking and that simply requires practice in an immersive situation. Ideally I want this to be a stepping stone for my Uni’s study-abroad opportunities next year.
As for a hotel, I’m thinking capsule. I have traveled overseas before (Russia, shudder) and while small, they look better than many of the places I’ve stayed. More importantly, cheap (cheap is the operative word here, I wanna do this trip in $2500 or less…)
What am I forgetting/missing/clueless about?
Capsule Hotels: Yes it’s cheap and kinda cool. You have a tiny TV inside. The one I stayed in had a community shower and bathroom area for each floor.
Drawbacks - If you are taller than 6 foot, you are going to be sleeping with your feet out, like some sort of cartoon character. The plastic wallings in each capsule will amplify noise, so you’ll be waking up to people shuffling around in the morning. People shuffling in their own plastic capsules will make lots of noise too.
I would either make sure you are dead tired before you go to sleep at the capsule inn, or do the freeter-Kunai-HeartNana thing and sleep at a cheap Internet cafe… which might be even cheaper than a capsule. They do have showers at most Internet cafes, but you can’t stow your luggage there overnight like you could a capsule inn. Your call.
Nikkos, you have some good ideas there.
If you come to Tokyo and want to play some shooters, hit me up. The places to go are Hey! in Akihabara, and Mikado in Takadanobaba.
Well, ok here’s how i break it down. At least in Osaka, here’s what I have:
Manga cafe (@wan in Namba):
- Very reasonably priced (1700 yen for 10 hours)
- Free Drinks, buncha manga to read
- Mat booths are pretty comfortable, usually free blankets
- Your own booth, with computer usage
- Showers (price of shower depends on the place)
- Always dark, so it’s easy to fall asleep IMO
- Mat booths are often gone by the time you’ll want to sleep there, so you have to get there at the right time in order to get a good place to stay
- Sometimes smells bad
- Can’t store luggage there overnight
- No actual bed/pillow, and the blankets are usually really small
- Other people are there, so it can get noisy and become hard to sleep
- Time is limited
Capsule hotel (the one in Amerika-mura, Shinsaibashi):
- Bed and a blanket
- A public bath, and a place to clean yourself, with shampoo/soap/toothbrushes/razors provided
- You’ll always be able to check in, they won’t really ever be fully booked
- You can stay there from whenever you check in until 10AM
- A lounge is there where you can relax and watch the TVs or play your games or whatever
- You can store your luggage there, and even do laundry
- More expensive than a manga cafe (2800 yen)
- Even if you check in at 2-3AM, you can only stay until 10AM
- People are mad noisy and as Kunai said, you can hear EVERYTHING
- If you’re too tall, your feet will stick out
- Only a couple computers are there, and for only a limited amount of time
- Drinks and stuff are overpriced
So yeah, the main problem is just other people. If you buy a pair of good earplugs, then it shouldn’t matter. Once I got my earplugs, I started to sleep just fine no matter where I was.
But Manga cafe prices (and capsule hotel prices) aren’t universal. You have to actually search for the best place. Some capsule hotels are expensive (4500 yen a night), some manga cafes are expensive (3000 yen for 10 hours in a mat booth) so it really is up to you to find the good deals for the places you’re gonna be.
And is the $2500 including plane fare? Is it for 1 week? 2 weeks? If it includes plane fare, assuming you find a really cheap ticket for lets say 900 dollars. That leaves 1600 for 2 weeks, which is about 150,000 yen. If you’re gonna be staying at a capsule hotel for 14 days (2800 x 14, and this is on the cheaper end as far as capsule hotels go), thats about 40,000. You now have 110,000 left. This means you have roughly 8000 yen per day to use. This has to cover meals, train tickets, stuff you’re gonna buy, bullet train tickets, etc. But, on the other hand, if you stay 7 days, you can do it a lot cheaper. Hotel becomes about 20,000, so that leaves you 130,000 for 7 days, meaning about 18,500 yen per day. But, if you’re only gonna stay 7 days, is it really worth it?
I’m not discouraging you, but if you’re forced to have to only spend 80 bucks a day here, you’re gonna be really disappointed and not have fun because you’re gonna be thinking “well, I want to do this and this, but it’s too expensive…”, even though you don’t know when your next chance will be. But if you can only stay for 7 days, you’ll find it goes by WAY too quick.
I would do a lot of research on exactly where you want to go, how long, etc, because 2500 for a trip to Japan, while that is a lot of money, at the same time, it really isn’t as far as a trip goes. Good luck tho!