I Miss Japan
 

I went to Japan for the first time a few months back and though I've traveled well over 40,000 miles in my life, I've never missed someplace so much. I find myself day dreaming about the trip and thinking about how different normal activities would be if I were over there. It's like being homesick except it isn't home.

What do you do to indulge your nostalgia? Movies? Music? Google image search pictures?

Movies and research.

Try google earthing were you've been and see how it's changed, that one always gets me..

Google street view ftw

Google images on Earth and Street View are never recent.

So? Its better than nothing

He said, "To see how it's changed..."
It's not better than nothing for that, as the pictures are likely less up to date than your own memories... unless you're some old man trying looking for the places he went to in WW2...

Not much will have changed in a few months.

When I'm feeling nostalgic for Japan I'll look through the pictures I took or watch this video

YouTube - A Moment in Tokyo - Canon HV30

Anyway, back on topic, I could never leave Thailand, now, so I think I feel the same way the OP must feel about Japan.

Of course, I've a feeling I've been in Thailand for a lot longer than he in Japan, so I've a lot more of a life here to cherish. Still, I get it.

I don't know what I'd do if I had to go back to Australia. I was disfunctional in that country. I had no job and was on government welfare payments. But in Thailand, I just found myself so easily. I made a life here in the blink fo an eye. I knew what to do.

If I had to go back to Australia, I'd be fighting like a savage to get back to SE Asia. Failing that, I'd probably shoot myself. Seriously. I hate that place.

But in Thailand, there's another adventure around every corner... I am all too eager to see what 2010 will hold for me in this land...

I can feel for you with loving the countries.

Japan was great.

I loved Thailand more..

The entertainment and nightly beers overtook me for a while, although the beers started to come to me instead;)

Great video! Thanks for sharing!

They just recently added my street, but the images themselves are 3 or so years old. It takes even longer with Japan because people make a huge deal out of images of people and cars being included, so they go through and blur all faces and license plates out.

You can see my car though. :D The blue one in the very back.

Google

Went travelling in Japan with my brother for three months back at the end of 2008. We still talk about the trip constantly and laugh about the amazing time we had. We even celebrated our japanniversary a year later from the day we left.:D
Every 3 or 4 months, one of us will go back through all the photos we took that are on facebook and post a load of comments on them again.
It breaks my heart that I am stuck back in England but I'll always have the memories. Hopefully going to go back for my honeymoon, :) although my bro said that I wasn't allowed to go back without him. ;)
Joined a load of forum groups to give advice to potential travellers as I want everyone to have an amazing adventure like the one we had!!!

Whenever I feel nostalgic I search up videos from Tokyo on youtube, and maybe see a documentary or something. Then I browse through all the pics I snapped. I also wrote a diary/journal with a couple of pages from each day. I might just take a peek into it right now!

Thanks Mark
 

Small world, I had stumbled upon your Memoirs of a Gaijin a few months back when I was researching my trip to Japan. I read your whole story very long and even though I had already planned to go to Japan your stories solidified it. Now I was sitting here just one month after returning from my month long trip and I thought "I miss Japan" and decided to google it.

I tried to Blog and write about my daily adventures but I found there was just so much to experience and write about I was using up my precious time...I lasted 2 days writing. So kudo's to you for having the fortitude to write it all down.

I miss Ippudo(Ramen), the magical music that signified a train would soon be arriving and the energy of Japan. I think until you have been to Japan you cannot truly appreciate it. I regret that none of my friends have been to Japan as simply showing them pictures cannot give one the feel of Japan.

Thanks for your stories

I've been having such a good time here, at first I didn't expect to stay longer than 2 or 3 months but I had this feeling I'd regret leaving every day after doing so. So I never did ;)

That's my solution to missing Japan, stay here!

I like your soultion RealJames, but we should remind people that staying in japan past the extent of your tourist visa is illegal ;)

haha yeah that's true enough.

luckily Japan is in a massive population crisis where everyone is getting old and the young aren't reproducing enough.
immigration seems to be pretty lax on it's policies nowadays

next time you're around have a look at the kind of foreigners that do have visas here, and ask your self who isn't better? ;)

For overstayers? They actually changed the laws kind-of recently - instead of a fine you get blocked from the country for 10+ years. This applies even if you`re just trying to leave the country a few days after your visa expires.

You used to just have to pay a fine and the cost of an extension visa - but now that is no longer an option.

"lax"? I think not. Maybe they won`t come hunting you down if you`re hiding out in the mountains or something, but the moment you try to do anything that requires documentation... Like, work somewhere normal, get an apartment, get utilities, get married, etc - you`ll find yourself deported and barred entry for the next 10-20 years, or life.

Nothing has changed on the front of getting a working visa - immigration doesn`t really do much more than issue the final visa. It`s down to the company to show they need you, etc.

I dunno, I've heard pretty differing stories that lead me to think that it comes down to the immigrations officer dealing with it.
In my case it certainly was that way, one immigrations officer flat out denied my business visa, so I went to the office another day when he wasn't working and his coworker felt I was overqualified for it and accepted it on the spot right there.
It might help to mention I was sleepy and dressed very casually the first time but in a suit the second time.

If a company wants you there's nothing they can do if immigration decides you don't meet some obscure criteria.
If immigrations likes you for whatever reason then you'll have no problems staying in the country even with a part time job and crap salary below official requirements.

From experience, I was working part time at a crap English school making very little money on paper, supplementing my cost of living with a slew of private students. But on paper I was making about 12万円 a month. I kept trying with different officers until I found one that liked me and then got in no problems.

Over-stayers is a different problem, that's just stupidity and also disrespectful.
I meant lax in terms of who they let in.

At the ski resort I'm at we have a lot of foreign staff as such a large part of our market is from overseas. One year a new guy came in to head up immigration in Sapporo (who obviously hadn't heard much about Niseko) and obviously couldn't understand why so many foreigners needed jobs and basically denied nearly every work visa request sent in. So a group of business owners along with the Australian consul went and had a meeting to explain the need for foreign workers and thankfully most of the visa requests were then approved.

Anyway on topic, my wife has decided she wants to go back to live in Australia after this coming summer. Mostly due to wanting to have family support for our daughter and plus she's never been as keen as I am on the long, cold snowy winters we get here in Hokkaido. To say I'm devastated is an understatement. She has already chosen and put down a deposit on a house in Aus (with my reluctant approval). Anyway my living the dream here in Japan will unfortunately come to an end. I'm already dreading how much I will miss my life here! We will be moving to a little coastal town that has absolutely beautiful beaches which will be nice but I love the snow a hell of lot more than nice beaches. I'm currently setting up a new business though that will allow me to come back and forth quite often and spend a fair portion of the winters here so I won't be leaving it entirely...and I will have had nearly 8 years of living the life I really wanted. I guess the wife deserves her turn ;)

Good man. It's all about compromise.

One tip: multiple re-entry investor/business manager visa. I love it. It is as good as it gets without permanent resident.

What about other parts of Japan. I really miss the alps and the smaller towns too. I often watch NHK world to see things from all over Japan.

I miss Towada-ko and the drive up there.... it's gorgeous! But since I went there when there wasn't a thing called the internet or digital cameras, I hardly have any proof of it....

I also miss Hirosaki and walking around the castle grounds.... a very pretty little city....