[godwine]

Like James said, its not a one sided thing, I am not trying to say that Japan is only bad either, I mean I still think the good overweight the bad. When we had our honeymoon in Kyushu, we spent the first night hopping between Yatai trying different food. At one of the "shop" we were joined by a group of Highschool teachers that just got off work (it was actually pretty late already, around 9:00 PM). We started chatting and I explained to them that it is our honeymoon. One of them, got up and paid for our meal as a welcome/congratulation gift... to a total stranger! And they even ordered a bottle of Asahi to do a loud "kanpai" with us. Darn friendly!

on the note of the exchage student thing, I think Evanny's friend was just unlucky, most of the people I spoke with had a great time doing exchange in Japan.

My uncle (in Saitama) took in a Exchange student many years ago, the guy's name is David, he had such a good time staying with them (and the overall experieince), he went and open up his own IT consultation business in Japan, and he still visit my uncle every now and then..