So my girlfriend and I are planning on moving to Japan sometime in the future. I have a few questions. We’re 18/19 so keep that in mind please.
Is Japanese houses expensive to rent/buy?
Do we look for jobs in America and then fly over or do we just fly over?
Is a car needed?
I plan on going to college is it good to go here or is Japan good?
Some random advice would be good =)
I’m curious about Street Fighter 4 there. I heard people play from the morning to the night… Do you need a really good job to support that or is SF4 arcade cheaper in Japan?
Japanese housing is almost impossible to buy if you’re not a citizen. As for renting, well, it depends on where you are. Generally speaking, I’d say you pay a lot more for a lot less.
Finding a job will depend highly on your language ability, but I’d say without a college degree you’re screwed for 99% of the jobs out there. If you don’t have enough experience with Japan to already know the answers to these questions, I’d say you’re probably not going to get a job there.
Probably don’t need a car if you’re in a big city.
Don’t go to college in Japan.
Random advice: Stay in the U.S., study Japanese (though I wouldn’t recommend it as a major), and take a study abroad program for a semester or a year before you even think about moving permanently.
Some friends and I will be visiting Kansai from 3/31 to 4/4
Can anyone please give me some suggestions on good cheap hotels or cheap hostels? I pretty much mostly stayed at manga kissa the last couple times I went and we also found last minute hotels before, but it would be nice to get some good reservations.
Probably somewhere in Osaka would be ideal. Somewhere that doesnt have strict check in/checkout/curfew times so that we can still go out drinking all night if we want, etc.
Any suggestions would be awsome.
Also if anyone wants to meet up for some games, I would be down.
As far as hotels, I would just suggest the generic toyoko inn. Double rooms are 7400~ yen, and twin rooms are 8400~ per night (depending on which one you stay at, the price is diff by a couple hundred yen). Its a little more expensive than you might want, but the facilities seem pretty good. Business twin rooms seem hella sweet, too. http://www.toyoko-inn.com/eng/info/equipment.html
Just check the map, click on Osaka, and the Nanba one, Shinsaibashi one, Senba one are in the type of location I would suggest. I prefer Namba area myself, but those are all close enough, imo. Obviously they have a check out time on the last day, but if you reserve it for like, 4 nights, you’ll be fine cause there’s no curfew if you’ve checked in like it says here: http://www.toyoko-inn.com/eng/info/notes.html
However, there’s no sleep sharing, so they’re not gonna let 3 people crash in a 2 person room. That’s the main downfall, so it can be a bit expensive, but i mean, it’s a pretty nice hotel imo for a reasonable price.
It seems like G2 and free grade of SFIV Championship mode is always dead on Xbox live. Is that because everyone moved up to G1 or higher and I missed the boat by sticking with Rank matches for too long? Because despite 360 in Japan’s low user count, I can find plenty of matches in the 2000 - 4000 BP range at just about any time of the day in Rank match mode. Yeah, this will be irrelevant once SSFIV comes out, but I’m just curious for future reference.
I got a question about how uptight the government is about the Herb. I want to know which part of Japan where growing the herb would be best and safest without intervention from the fuzz. My friend says that a village is good for mass production of marijuana, but I still would want to grow some herb if i was in a huge town.
The government is ridiculously uptight about any form of illegal drug. The consequence for getting caught with it is way worse than it is back wherever you’re from. You’re likely to get deported forever instantly, never allowed back, etc. If you’re here on a visa, then you’re screwing over whoever hired you for a job or whoever let you study abroad whatever as well. And that’s the LEAST of what happens to you. You might get years of jailtime, i unno. If you’re just visiting, then you should just avoid it for however long you’re here.
Also note that the main people who grow it/sell it are Yakuza, so not only are you doing something thats likely to get you, and everyone you’re with (regardless of whether they’re doing it or not) deported, you’re dealing with people that you really really don’t want to fuck with.
So pretty much, the best answer is don’t get yourself and everyone you’re with deported because you like weed, simple as that. Find something else to take it out on if you can, but the government is crazy strict. If you get caught here, consider your life here (and maybe your life in general) fucked.
And please never bring it to a place where there’s other people who don’t know you have it. If you get caught with it, the people youre with can get fucked too, even if they didn’t do anything, and it would be on your shoulders.
Note that I’m not against weed itself, but I’m against having it/smoking it/dealing it in Japan, where the government is super strict about it.
Yeah, HeartNana tells the truth. If you get caught with that stuff, you will definitely serve time and get deported, not to mention that the legal system here is opposite of America (guilty until proven innocent) and quite long-drawn.You won’t be getting any special treatment if you’re a foreigner… possibly you’ll get worse treatment. And although it would be unfair in an American’s eyes, you will also get anyone else who is around you at the time in major trouble too, with punishments almost as severe. They also do this concerning people who drink and drive. If you drink even a drop of alcohol and it’s in your system when they pull you over, you lose your job (even Japanese natives will lose their job) and get thrown in jail. If you are in the car and you are with a driver who had alcohol, you are also guilty by association and will be charged almost as severely as the driver who drove drunk.
A former member of my program in my area got caught sleeping in his car with the smell of Mary Jane seeping through his open window and a cop came over and busted him. He was in jail for over 1/2 a year I believe before getting sent back to America. It’s also an expensive ordeal being placed in jail… don’t know the figures off-hand, but it’s definitely going to put a massive dent into your wallet.
Yes, people here do smoke the stuff, grow the stuff, etc… but just remember that any controlled substance in Japan is treated the same. You get caught with any recreational drugs, marijuana, cocaine, etc… it’s all the same to Japan. You’re pretty much fucked.
Not sure how serious you are about coming to Japan, but just keep that in mind if you do decide to go that if you get caught with stuff like that, Japan doesn’t fuck around.
You will find that a lot of things said in anime or manga will never be used in real life. Especially in comics like Naruto. I’m not too knowledgeable about manga/anime, but my friend is a big fan of Naruto, is great with Japanese, and he says that they kinda talk like how superheroes would talk… just a bit over-dramatic at times.
I said “kisama” once (should mean “bastard” in Japanese), and one dude laughed at me because he said I sound like I was straight out of a comic book.
Really? I wonder if they’ve gotten stricter in the last few years, because about 8 years ago in Saitama I was riding with someone who got pulled over for drunk driving and she just got like a 300,000 yen fine, and I got off without anything. I’m white, so I wonder if they just though it would be a pain in the ass to explain to me…
w/e. it’s common sense to not grow weed in big towns of metropolises. i’ll just go to some remote village or an island and have some of my home niGGA$ plant whit widow and possibly peyote cactus for mescaline. mskin thA@ $$$
Not sure, but all I know is that was explained to us fully in detail when I got here 3 years ago by reps from our program. For Japanese people, you don’t have to worry much because they will take Daiko (special taxi service). They just wanted to let us know it’s not like America or other countries… at least in the part of Japan that I live in.
Kansai peeps - next weekend? Saturday might be a little tough for me, but I’m down for Sunday or Monday. Sunday would be best.
I believe they’ve gotten stricter in the last few years. Many shops will actually not even sell you alcohol if they know you’re driving.
Trying to do illegal stuff in a small town can be worse, because you will probably be the only foreigner there and as such, there will be a huge spotlight on you. My original town wasn’t even that small comparitively - 36,000 people, and people pretty much knew exactly when and how I was breathing.
