Working holiday visa, living.

[Nokutetsu]

I'm not planning on this soon (I can't, you have to be 18 at least) but I'm planning ahead it in the future.

Being a UK citizen, I can get a working holiday visa for up to a year, or stay in Japan for up to 6 months without a visa. Obviously, having a visa would be much more plausible for a longer stay. Whether it's for working or renting books/ DVDs ect, I think I'll apply for the visa when the time comes.

I'm studying Japanese, and I'm looking for a few questions to be answered.

Job: teaching English would be nice. However, living in Tokyo is just too expensive. I would like to stay in the Kanto region, but somewhere less expensive, eg Atami, or somewhere near by. I'm pretty sure I could eat cheaply, and rent a 1K apartment. I'm pretty good with money.

So what I'm wondering is, if I was to budget carefully and live in a 1K apartment outside Tokyo, could I survive on the wage of a foreign English teacher?

[MMM]

What do you mean by "1K" apartment? Like a one room apartment?

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by MMM

What do you mean by "1K" apartment? Like a one room apartment?

I am assuming they mean the normal definition of 1K in Japanese - Like, 1 room plus kitchen.

MMM, I`m surprised you don`t know the abbreviations. There is 1-room, with just one room (obviously)... Then 1K for 1 room + kitchen, 1DK for one room + large enough kitchen to dine in there too, 1LDK for one bedroom + living dining and kitchen (usually just one big room but occasionally split into LD and K) and so on... I live in a 4LDK, which is 4 bedrooms, living, dining, and kitchen.

To the OP;
I`m curious - why are you limiting yourself to the Kanto area? If you`re worried about having enough money for living, it seems like it would make much more sense to live away from Kanto... If it`s city life you`re after it will be much much cheaper to live in a big city other than Tokyo rather than live kind of near Tokyo and pay tons to commute.

[MysticLight]

Originally Posted by Nokutetsu

I'm not planning on this soon (I can't, you have to be 18 at least) but I'm planning ahead it in the future.

Being a UK citizen, I can get a working holiday visa for up to a year, or stay in Japan for up to 6 months without a visa. Obviously, having a visa would be much more plausible for a longer stay. Whether it's for working or renting books/ DVDs ect, I think I'll apply for the visa when the time comes.

I'm studying Japanese, and I'm looking for a few questions to be answered.

Job: teaching English would be nice. However, living in Tokyo is just too expensive. I would like to stay in the Kanto region, but somewhere less expensive, eg Atami, or somewhere near by. I'm pretty sure I could eat cheaply, and rent a 1K apartment. I'm pretty good with money.

So what I'm wondering is, if I was to budget carefully and live in a 1K apartment outside Tokyo, could I survive on the wage of a foreign English teacher?

Slightly off the subject, but some people consider being an english teacher in japan a very bad way to be engrossed into the japanese culture because you will likely only talk to fellow teachers.

I'll probably do the same as you for a bit =]

[ozkai]

Originally Posted by Nokutetsu

I'm pretty sure I could eat cheaply, and rent a 1K apartment. I'm pretty good with money.

You'd be better off with one bedroom instead of a kitchen.

It's probably easier to cook in the bedroom as oposed to sleeping in the kitchen LOL..

[Sangetsu]

You won't have any difficulty "surviving" on an English teacher's salary. There are many families in Japan that live on less.

Unless the rules have changed, I believe that a working holiday visa is only good for 6 months. The good thing about this type of visa is that you can do pretty much any kind of work (cook, server, bartender), and there is no special paperwork required. On the other hand, these other jobs often pay rather poorly (1000 yen an hour) compared to teaching English (2500 to 3000 yen per hour), so you probably would have a difficult time "surviving".

Most teaching jobs will require a one-year contract, meaning that you might have trouble getting a job as a teacher with a 6 month visa. There are exceptions, another poster said that Interac offered him a 6 month contract, so that might be an option.

As for living near Tokyo, as long as you aren't too close to the city, you might find that living in Japan is not that expensive. I'm not that far from Tokyo myself (I spend my weekends there), but the cost of living where I am now is much less than the area where I lived in America. My gf's 2DK apartment in Tokyo costs about $3000 per month, my 2DK house (brand new) in the countryside runs about $700 a month, and a third of my rent is offset by the housing allowance I receive from my school.

Take your time and research your options before you come. Look for jobs/housing in the Saitama or Chiba areas, which border Tokyo, but are far enough from the metro area to be quiet and inexpensive.

[Nokutetsu]

Originally Posted by Sangetsu

You won't have any difficulty "surviving" on an English teacher's salary. There are many families in Japan that live on less.

Unless the rules have changed, I believe that a working holiday visa is only good for 6 months. The good thing about this type of visa is that you can do pretty much any kind of work (cook, server, bartender), and there is no special paperwork required. On the other hand, these other jobs often pay rather poorly (1000 yen an hour) compared to teaching English (2500 to 3000 yen per hour), so you probably would have a difficult time "surviving".

Most teaching jobs will require a one-year contract, meaning that you might have trouble getting a job as a teacher with a 6 month visa. There are exceptions, another poster said that Interac offered him a 6 month contract, so that might be an option.

As for living near Tokyo, as long as you aren't too close to the city, you might find that living in Japan is not that expensive. I'm not that far from Tokyo myself (I spend my weekends there), but the cost of living where I am now is much less than the area where I lived in America. My gf's 2DK apartment in Tokyo costs about $3000 per month, my 2DK house (brand new) in the countryside runs about $700 a month, and a third of my rent is offset by the housing allowance I receive from my school.

Take your time and research your options before you come. Look for jobs/housing in the Saitama or Chiba areas, which border Tokyo, but are far enough from the metro area to be quiet and inexpensive.

UK working holiday Visa's are 1 year/12 months. Living in Japan as a UK citizen WITHOUT any visa is 6 months.

[MMM]

I never went apartment hunting, so maybe that's why I am unfamiliar. At least where I lived, what was a "1K" apartment was always called a ワン・ルーム・マンション. You learn something new every day.

And to Mystic Light, I was an English teacher for three years and spent almost no other time with non-Japanese teachers, and was very involved in the local and regional Japanese culture. It's not the job that determines your experience, but your personality.

[Nokutetsu]

Originally Posted by MMM

And to Mystic Light, I was an English teacher for three years and spent almost no other time with non-Japanese teachers, and was very involved in the local and regional Japanese culture. It's not the job that determines your experience, but your personality.

Well, Nyororin says being an English teacher is a bad idea. It would certainly be the easy option, however I don't want to take the job if it prevents me from understanding japanese culture and socializing with the people.

It doesn't have to be near Tokyo, or in the Kanto region, but I would much prefer it. I am not interested in anime, but I do enjoy live music, and I think Tokyo is best for that? I could be wrong though.

[ozkai]

Originally Posted by Nokutetsu

Well, Nyororin says being an English teacher is a bad idea. It would certainly be the easy option, however I don't want to take the job if it prevents me from understanding japanese culture and socializing with the people.

It doesn't have to be near Tokyo, or in the Kanto region, but I would much prefer it. I am not interested in anime, but I do enjoy live music, and I think Tokyo is best for that? I could be wrong though.

Osaka would be just as good without the over crowding that Tokyo offers.

Nothing wrong with English teaching, you just have to enjoy it to do it.

I learnt a lot of Japanese culture whilst teaching in Kyoto, Shiga and Nara.

It's a good region.

My best mate in Japan was British and was originally a teacher trainer for kids at Nova.

Having said all this, I am not in anyway familiar with Tokyo, but I have always taken the advice of Japanese when they say, "Kyoto", "E-na". That means nice