Tifa, please take a deep breath and relax. Thank you.

Anyways, I've lived in Japan for only a year and I already feel like "I don't want to live in Japan". Perhaps I had such high expectation before I was there and that led me to disappointment when I was actually there... So well, what I've learnt from this mistake is that I should never expect so much, haha...

I found that you go through ups and downs. Sometimes life is good and you are loving it there. Other times you have some problems and life and the country are getting you down and you just want to go home. Everyone has their own cycles and breaking point. Personally, I'm glad I stayed 2 years, but also glad I didn't stay 3. I knew others that couldn't wait to come home after 1 year (or before), and some that didn't want to leave after 3, 4, or more years.

thank you, im not soo it ok, for some on has english as a 2nd lang i think i do ok :)

On that note, maybe you should tone down you signature.

Sorry to bring up a dead thread...
 

Sorry to bring up a dead subject, but there was this article in Japan times that reminded me of this thread. Mods: feel free to make this a thread of its own.. "Does size really matter" should be the name

Standard of living meets house of correction
By THOMAS DILLON

Recently I had coffee in the Ginza with a friend from abroad, a Japanese gentlemen making a rare pilgrimage back to the land of his upbringing.

From our second-story window we gazed down upon the pizzazz of the city streets — the glistening facades of the storefronts, the sleek fashions of the passersby, the state-of-the-art flash of advertisements, and the overall fabulousness of a scene that could have been snipped from Lucasfilm.

Yet this was real — not CGI — and unfurling right before our very eyes, as it does every day there in the land of Chanel, Cartier, Gucci and the rest.

"But the splendor isn't only here," said my friend. "It's everywhere. "

And he went on to chronicle his recent high-tech travels through Japan, from subway lows to skyscraper highs, a streamlined, future-esque journey every mesmerizing step of the way. He claimed his adopted North America had nothing that could compare.

I thought of my own Midwestern home — with all potholed roads leading not to Rome but to Walmart — and I could only agree. No matter the crowds, no matter the numbing weight of the recession, Japan ranked as more advanced — clearly.

He nodded back. "Yes, the standard of living here is beyond that of North America. In every way." But then he swallowed a drum roll pause and added:

"Except . . ."

Except?

"Except the houses. Oh, Japanese homes are fine. They just can't match up with the size and quality of the West."

I drum rolled back and thought . . .

Duh, tell me about it.

For I am the proud owner of a Japanese home, one of the thousands that are egg-cartoned around the outskirts of Tokyo.

And, as my friend had said, it is fine.

We have, to start, five fine rooms. Which are connected by stairs and hallways as slender as Jessica Alba's waist.

Five rooms. Into which we jam 10 rooms worth of possessions. We can do this through sophisticated Japanese shelving methods, invented no doubt by origami experts. The twists and turn open up just enough space so that each room can also hold some air.

We also have a fine ofuro. For some architecturally obtuse reason it is the largest room in the house. Too bad the changing area is the size of a phone booth, as it also holds our washing machine. The result? We have become clothes-change contortionists. There was no choice. It was either that or hop to the bath naked from the hall.

We also have a fine yard, where I enjoy working out. I stand at one end and leap boldly to the other. Or if I feel lazy, I just lean and step across.

And of course, there is also our fine drive, a selling point for the entire residence. For it takes only two minutes to shovel. Should it ever snow.

But the truer selling point was the fine price. Yes, we stole this honey at a post-bubble low that at the time made all our neighbors sick with envy. With current recession markdowns now producing a relapse.

Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away — called Illinois — one of my sisters also bought a house not too long before we did. At one-sixth our cost.

And she too has but five rooms, all strikingly larger than ours.

And a full den in her basement. And a porch. And a driveway long enough to park a circus train, let alone her car. And a garage. And a front yard twice the size of my entire property. And a back yard for which no Japanese would ever use the word "yard." They would say "park."

In another nearby town — connected by potholed roads — is the home of a different sister. I gaze at this and shudder.

For the front porch alone is more expansive than my entire house. In Japan, this much space would have a highway down the middle.

Not that I'm jealous. Nope. Uh-uh. Not at all.

For this all fits the grander scheme of nature, right? Japan is spatially challenged. If people built bigger houses, there wouldn't be enough room and some homes would surely slip off and tumble into the sea.

Or . . . Japanese would have to add pounds to help fill the excess space in their wider dwellings. For nature abhors a vacuum. Why do you think so many Americans are obese?

OK. So I am jealous. A little.

But so what if my very fine house is also very small? Does size really matter?

I mean . . . It is still a happy home. Even if we have to sleep standing up.

And in the meantime, whenever I want to behold Japan's superior standard of living, I can catch a jam-packed train for the glorious Ginza.

Where I can grab a doughnut and enjoy a very humble breakfast at Tiffany's.

Wow, that was a lot of reading all 17 pages woo! lol

I have to say I completely understand with MMM, and there are both valid points negative and positive on both sides. Depending on what angle you're coming at it with, but for me - right I live Arizona, USA and the main reason why I want to go and possibly live there because not a full fledged otaku wanting to live my live in Akihabara.

I want to go there for the culture and also work there and on the weekends, kind of a work hard and play hard mentality. And after a while if I do end up living in Japan, I understand I will be giving up a lot of things that what we have here in America, that probably most japanese people dream of having like having a house with front yard and backyard, Heck my house right now, my drive way is bigger than half of my old 1 story house - and moving to japan to live there.

I already know full well that I'm probably going to end up living in an apartment that is probably smaller than the size of my room and will most likely have no place to park a car - heck can't even talk about having a car yet cause it isn't a simple process to get a car anyways. Everything takes time and I'll have to have patience over there because living there isn't no easy task; at least I don't think so.

In America, shoot you can buy a decent house for under 200,000 and you'll have your own driveway and garage but instead of being able to walk most places and ride a bus and such, you'll be giving up and have to "gamble" with being on time and get a car of your own and commute a drive to work.

Shoot, now I lost what I really was gonna say :p

but overall, I do want to go to japan and if I like it, i'll also want to live there for a few years and then i'll eventually find my way to Thailand and visit my "motherland" over there for a while as well...

But still - if you don`t live in Tokyo, it`s suburbs, or in the middle of a big town...
You can have a decent sized home, with a yard, with a driveway/parking area, and all that fun stuff. And no, it doesn`t have to cost so much that it kills you.
Japan is more than just Tokyo, but so many people seem to forget this.

I have a home that is a decent sized (approx 110sq.m / 1200sq. ft with yard about the same size) home, and am actually within bicycle distance of downtown Nagoya. Should we have looked for a place in the same price range a bit further out I could have pulled off equivalent-to-US-sizes without much difficulty.

People always gawk at how tiny houses are in Tokyo, but do you really think that the average income person living in New York City owns a huge house with huge yard of grass and street sized driveway?
Comparing Tokyo housing to the suburban US just seems silly. If that`s fair, then my in-laws have a house twice the size of anything anyone in my family in the US has ever lived in. By at least twice. My mother got LOST in their house when I dragged her here to visit.

What makes you think you will not work on weekends? In Japan you are lucky if you have one day off. Even with my contract stating that I had two days off a week it never happened. And if you bring this up you are a complaining gaijin that doesn't have loyalty to the company. And vacation time, forget it. I had 3 weeks vacation every year due to being a manager and I got to take it right before my contract ended. And since I was going home, I wasn't allowed to travel out of my city since "there are so many loose ties that need to be taken care of". So my dream of traveling around Asia never happened. One lady I worked with (she was Japanese) actually demanded to take a week off to go to Spain. When she came back, they forced her to quit by making life there uncomfortable (she worked for them for 15 years).
working in Japan is like no other place. Be prepared to live for your job.

Methinks you're projecting too hard...

...I never work weekends.

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