Planning a week stay in Tokyo

[TheyCallMeTheSwede]

Man, I was just watching Lost in Translation and it kind of discourage me (good movie non the less), but goddamn it guys, you resurged my interest like its nothing, I just wish my job would actually let me go an extra week (I get paid vacations, plus I get paid $15 an hour), but oh well, I'll have fun non the less, I will at least bring a friend with me (what I learned from the movie above, is not going alone).

I need to consolidate all these places and plan them out, day by day, hour by hour...Hey, I plan ahead, its a blessing and a curse of mine.

[D.D.D.]

Spring time is an expensive time to go. With Golden Week and the blossoming of sakura, that is when Japanese people are traveling. Try to go during an off-peak time. March is a fairly cheap time. April and May can be costly.

Well like you said, spring can be expensive but Golden Week is the first week of May, way after the cherry blossoms are blooming (3/21~4/7 depending on area). Before living here, it has always been cheap for me to travel from the states to Tokyo for ohanami~

[hashiriya1]

Man, I was just watching Lost in Translation.

Yeah, don't watch that movie. It is full of ignorant stereotypes and does not paint a very accurate picture of Tokyo life or Japanese people.The first time I watched it I turned it off about halfway through. At first I was thinking "Nice, an American drama/comedy set in Tokyo, that's a first" then after a while I thought "OK, Sophia Coppola is going to waste this opportunity just making fun of the locals." I didn't watch the entire thing until years later. I was annoyed the whole time but my gf really wanted to watch it.

Anyway, don't be discouraged. There really is no place else like Japan. Be careful, you might get hooked. I have met many people who just wanted to visit and ended up living there.

[marurun]

I love the people, the scenery, the amenities, and some of their sensibilities, but their social structures do have some serious roadblocks for anyone non-Japanese. So culturally insular. As long as you're a visitor and don't speak Japanese very well you're OK. Once you start to hang around and speak the language as well as they do they begin to take you more seriously and don't know what to do with you any more.

[BoringSupreez]

Anyway, don't be discouraged. There really is no place else like Japan. Be careful, you might get hooked. I have met many people who just wanted to visit and ended up living there.

I've heard immigration there is nearly impossible.

[hashiriya1]

I've heard immigration there is nearly impossible.

If you're all alone and on your own, yes. If you take the easy route by shacking up with a Japanese girl/guy and/or getting a job at a Japanese company, you're in there.

Permanent status takes a long time, but not impossible.

[BoringSupreez]

I've heard immigration there is nearly impossible.

If you're all alone and on your own, yes. If you take the easy route by shacking up with a Japanese girl/guy and/or getting a job at a Japanese company, you're in there.

Permanent status takes a long time, but not impossible.

If you ask me, it's silly that they make it so hard to get in if you don't have some sort of foot in the door like you're describing. They need young immigrants right now from what I've heard, but they're not doing anything to attract them.

[Breetai]

I've heard immigration there is nearly impossible.

If you're all alone and on your own, yes. If you take the easy route by shacking up with a Japanese girl/guy and/or getting a job at a Japanese company, you're in there.

Permanent status takes a long time, but not impossible.

5-10 years would usually do it.

[hashiriya1]

Permanent status takes a long time, but not impossible.

If you ask me, it's silly that they make it so hard to get in if you don't have some sort of foot in the door like you're describing. They need young immigrants right now from what I've heard, but they're not doing anything to attract them.[/quote]


Right now they're making it easy for immigrants from Indonesia and the Philippines who are trained in nursing since Japan has a big shortage of nurses. They're even lowering the standards for nurses in Japan so they have a better chance. In the past they did this for Peruvian and Brazilian immigrants because Japan needed a lot of factory workers to work in electronics and car factories. This is why there is a huge Peruvian and Brazilian population there. They never went back.

Japan is slowly opening up, but it'll take a while. They're doing it one step at a time, country by country. If your country has people they need, they'll come recruit them. They want to make sure whoever is coming in to work is already educated, trained, and ready hired, which I agree with. It keeps the riffraff out. I had to prove I had a college degree just for my employer to schedule an interview. It is still a very xenophobic country and the uyoku and yakuza who have some clout in politics will try their damnedest to keep Japan's borders closed.

[Breetai]

Lucky for most of us, we can get in with our university degrees and teach English. If you don't have that, or the three years experience in the field, then.... yeah, come for a visit or get married.