[GhostBlade]

Thanks Firebird and Samurai!

Firebird, I will look through those links. I looked through the Hospitality Club link before and I'm wondering if I should really look into it doing it. Just having a place to stay for free seems tempting. This is the option I'm most interested in. I also looked through the Wwoofing link and it looks interesting. It may be something to look at in the future but not on my first trip to Japan. I want to move around to different cities throughout Japan during my first trip so I'm thinking on maybe seeing if I can work at some youth hostels or maybe find a host from the Hospitality Club site. I was thinking about the whole hitchhiking aspect but I'm not sure if I should attempt it during my first trip to Japan. Perhaps when I'm a bit more experienced with Japan. I was thinking about ordering The Hitchhiker's Guide to Japan by Will Ferguson and maybe even Hokkaido Highway Blues which he also wrote to get a glimpse of what hitchhiking in Japan is all about.

Samurai, those pictures look great. I would definitely want to experience something like that and just be out in nature. I want to balance my stay in Japan by experiencing the traditional, rural and modern/city side of Japan. I will definitely visit the Kansai region but I'm still deciding if I should go beyond that distance. Maybe I should since I'll have such a long time to explore Japan. I read about drinks being more expensive in bars and restaurants but thanks for the tip about buying drinks at supermarkets and convenient stores. I really want to save as much as I can since things can add up fairly quickly if you're staying for over a month.