I can feel for you with loving the countries.

Japan was great.

I loved Thailand more..

The entertainment and nightly beers overtook me for a while, although the beers started to come to me instead;)

Great video! Thanks for sharing!

They just recently added my street, but the images themselves are 3 or so years old. It takes even longer with Japan because people make a huge deal out of images of people and cars being included, so they go through and blur all faces and license plates out.

You can see my car though. :D The blue one in the very back.

Google

Went travelling in Japan with my brother for three months back at the end of 2008. We still talk about the trip constantly and laugh about the amazing time we had. We even celebrated our japanniversary a year later from the day we left.:D
Every 3 or 4 months, one of us will go back through all the photos we took that are on facebook and post a load of comments on them again.
It breaks my heart that I am stuck back in England but I'll always have the memories. Hopefully going to go back for my honeymoon, :) although my bro said that I wasn't allowed to go back without him. ;)
Joined a load of forum groups to give advice to potential travellers as I want everyone to have an amazing adventure like the one we had!!!

Whenever I feel nostalgic I search up videos from Tokyo on youtube, and maybe see a documentary or something. Then I browse through all the pics I snapped. I also wrote a diary/journal with a couple of pages from each day. I might just take a peek into it right now!

Thanks Mark
 

Small world, I had stumbled upon your Memoirs of a Gaijin a few months back when I was researching my trip to Japan. I read your whole story very long and even though I had already planned to go to Japan your stories solidified it. Now I was sitting here just one month after returning from my month long trip and I thought "I miss Japan" and decided to google it.

I tried to Blog and write about my daily adventures but I found there was just so much to experience and write about I was using up my precious time...I lasted 2 days writing. So kudo's to you for having the fortitude to write it all down.

I miss Ippudo(Ramen), the magical music that signified a train would soon be arriving and the energy of Japan. I think until you have been to Japan you cannot truly appreciate it. I regret that none of my friends have been to Japan as simply showing them pictures cannot give one the feel of Japan.

Thanks for your stories

I've been having such a good time here, at first I didn't expect to stay longer than 2 or 3 months but I had this feeling I'd regret leaving every day after doing so. So I never did ;)

That's my solution to missing Japan, stay here!

I like your soultion RealJames, but we should remind people that staying in japan past the extent of your tourist visa is illegal ;)

haha yeah that's true enough.

luckily Japan is in a massive population crisis where everyone is getting old and the young aren't reproducing enough.
immigration seems to be pretty lax on it's policies nowadays

next time you're around have a look at the kind of foreigners that do have visas here, and ask your self who isn't better? ;)

For overstayers? They actually changed the laws kind-of recently - instead of a fine you get blocked from the country for 10+ years. This applies even if you`re just trying to leave the country a few days after your visa expires.

You used to just have to pay a fine and the cost of an extension visa - but now that is no longer an option.

"lax"? I think not. Maybe they won`t come hunting you down if you`re hiding out in the mountains or something, but the moment you try to do anything that requires documentation... Like, work somewhere normal, get an apartment, get utilities, get married, etc - you`ll find yourself deported and barred entry for the next 10-20 years, or life.

Nothing has changed on the front of getting a working visa - immigration doesn`t really do much more than issue the final visa. It`s down to the company to show they need you, etc.