Can you share experiences of moving to Japan?

[aliceinwonderland]

I was just wondering if anyone could share their stories with me about being a westerner from the uk or america, speaking english and moving to japan to live an work.

i plan to do this myself in 5 to 6 years time, i would love to be an illustrator i japan!

i was just wondering if you could share your experineces and advice with me.

What did u do to prepare?
why did you want to move to japan?
how did you secure a job and home?
did you learn japanese?
was it what you ahd expected?
how hard was it to settle in?
how long did it take to settle in?

anything important i should know? etc.

Thank you!

 

[GaijinPunch]

Go when you are poor. It is very easy when you have only one suitcase. My story summed up:

Graduated university in December. Moved to Japan in January. The only preparation I did was arranged to live w/ a friend for a while. Got there, got a job, partied my *** off for the first year or so. Eventually settled down and got a real job.

I majored in Japanese so the transition was relatively easy, other than sharing a room, and getting acclamated to the cold weather (I'm from Texas).

EDIT:
Despite having a very pleasing college experience, and making almost zero money for a lot of work, my first two years in Japan was by far the funnest time of my life.

 

[Iron Chef]

"What did u do to prepare?
why did you want to move to japan?
how did you secure a job and home?
did you learn japanese?
was it what you ahd expected?
how hard was it to settle in?
how long did it take to settle in?

anything important i should know? etc."

Every one of those individual questions could probably elicit a lengthy response depending on who you ask. I would suspect you could probably find the kind of answers you're looking for in a lot of the older threads. For myself though, to put it in a nutshell:

1) Had no exposure whatsoever to anything Japanese (aside from watching campy Godzilla films as a kid but that doesn't count) prior to me actually setting foot in Japan for the first time.

2) Learned the language through forced necessity after having made up my mind I would commit myself to doing so rather than just surrounding myself with other native English-speakers at every opportunity.

3) At some point, made the transition from being an English teacher because it was the only thing I could do at the time legally in Japan to being an English teacher because I actually enjoy what I do.

 

[RoadsterTurbo]

ya can anyone tell us some more story, i wanna know too !! thanks

 

[ghettocities]

It started with Nintendo and ended with entertainment system.


Josh

 

[DoctorP]

Josh...should you even answer here? You've never moved to Japan have you...only visited and molested the women right?

 

[ghettocities]

Josh...should you even answer here? You've never moved to Japan have you...only visited and molested the women right?

Unless you've researched my whereabouts, a person like yourself could easily imagine a person like myself living in Japan but I'm sure you've examined me from head to toe and know my last name and my favorite restaurants in Japan. Thanks for your attention,


Josh

 

[DoctorP]

uh...thanks for answering the question Opie!