Quote:
Originally Posted by stekun
If you're not sure if you want inaka or big cities, I would suggest looking at Okayama-ken. It has a good blend of both. Plus it's somewhat off the beaten path, so going there would be unique, but not so much that you would be lost. It sits on the main shinkansen line for west Japan, so you can get up to Oosaka, Kyoto, Nagoya and Tokyo without too much trouble. Hiroshima is also very close and Okayama itself is a good sized city. But you also don't have to go far at all to get out of the city. Shikoku is just over the bridge and Tottori-ken is a few hours north. Personally, Tottori-ken has probably been my personal favorite place that I've lived, but that's because I prefer to be out of the city. If you want easy access to city, Tottori is not the right place. At all. It was not unusual for me to be the first American some of the people up there had ever met.
I also thought the Shizuoka suggestion is a good one. It's more in the middle of things than Okayama, which for me personally is a minus, but it's a nice quiet town with very easy access to both Tokyo and Nagoya. And it's got the best views of Mt. Fuji there is. And the maguro I had at some random fish market there was easily THE BEST sushi I had ever experienced.
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Thanks. I'm really stuck in my decision on where I should be looking of going. However, I still have two years until I actually go and the decision on where I may be placed isn't up to me. Perhaps I should look into a location that has cooler temperatures. What I'm afraid of is that if I'm at a location that's cold or snowing that there won't be as many people outside as there would be in warmer cities. The experience wouldn't be as lively.