I have just returned from a 5 week stay in Japan, where I encountered many gaijin every day - almost all of them fellow students at the Japanese Language School I was attending.
Other than that, I saw a few in Kyoto Station, and Tokyo and Akihabara Stations. None in Shizuoka, Mishima or Shinfuji or Fuji or Nara or ... . Gaijin seem to be very thin on the ground indeed.

Your lucky day!

Are you sure they weren't French?

Haha.. Kyoto station was my home turf;)

Non japanese everywhere.. A stroll into Starbuck's will prove that most of the time:mtongue:

This honestly seems to be a huge question. I cannot even count how many times I have been asked.

I encounter so very few foreigners that I can honestly say I probably notice and take note of every I do spot. I`d say an average of one spotting a week or two in warm weather. In cooler (cold) weather, almost never. Most of the time it`s in the direct vicinity of an English school. I drive quite a bit in my car, so this is over a huge area. If I were to stay in my direct area, only traveling by foot and bicycle - maybe I`d spot one foreigner every 6 months?

In other words, hardly ever.

Even when we visited some major tourist areas, I`d say maybe 2 or 3 obvious foreigners? I do think we saw one group of 9 or 10 students when we visited Nara.

There simply aren`t tons of foreigners in Japan. I can`t recall exactly where I read this so can`t pull up a link or be 100% sure of the figure - but if I recall correctly 80% of the non-Asian foreigners living in Japan are split between Tokyo, Saitama, and Osaka. The remaining 20% are spread over the rest of Japan. And even in Tokyo, depending upon where you hang out, you could go weeks without seeing another foreigner. Certainly no hordes wandering around where ever you go.

my view is being changed completely

what i thought before:
the gaijin are everywhere, there are anime cosplay places everywhere, you can't walk cause of the amount of people, the streets are unbearable, the bathrooms are over-occupied, the shops are crowded with people especially anime ones with gaijin, the electronics and other items only found in the country like the mobile phones are hardly in stock, the cultural restaurants' seats are all taken during the morning, evening and the night and the population keeps increasing and increasing and it is becoming a disaster :eek:

what i think after:
the country is normal like any other country, with some foreigners here and there, the condition is fine, the places like streets/shops/places are neutral, it's crowded in some places like tokyo or osaka and quiet in others, most people are very interested in the country but 99.9% of them aren't going to live there(MMM's theory :mtongue: ) and it's just fine :D

well, im happy that we changed your view to the good! Streets and places can be crowded as are the trains in the major citys if you are at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Oh besides the 1 % living foreigners i think Japan has about 2 Million Tourists a year wich is not so much considered this includes all countrys and Japans population is over 120 Million.

Japan is a very homogeneous society, perhaps 1% of the population is made up of foreigners, and of this 1%, 90% are Asian. The number of Western/European foreigners is very small, most of the foreigners you actually see are tourists and not residents.

The numbers of foreigners have been decreasing as of late due to layoffs in Japanese industry. Brazilian factory workers are being paid by the government to go home, and many of the expats who work in the financial industry have returned home as well.

The only places you'll find the sidewalks crowded with foreigners is Akihabara (where busloads of Chinese are dropped off to shop), and Roppongi, where the western foreigners tend to gravitate to. As mentioned, most of these are tourists.

There are very, very few gaijin in Japan compared to the number of Japanese people. Almost all of those otaku fanboys never make it to Japan, and if they do, it's for a visit, not to live there.

And the ones that do make it will find it bittersweet. Yes, it's JAPAN! But it's not like how it is in the manga and anime, it's real life, with all the difficulties, worries, and frustrations that involves. And yes, there is a ton of manga and anime to be found, a great majority of which is unheard of in the west! But it's all in Japanese, no English anywhere, so unless you know Japanese rather fluently, all you can do is enjoy the art, you can't really grasp the intricacies of the dialogue or story. Are you fluent in Japanese? Most of the otakus that dream of Japan are not, which means they may find all kinds of new treasures... and can't understand any of it, some times not even the title or the names of the main characters.

i really appreciate everyone's replies and i am very grateful to you all :)

As Nyorin said, It also depends on where you actually look.

Osaka city, Kyoto city, you can see many.

On the other hand, go to a country area in Nara, and you would be pushed to hunt one down!