Looking for Info to visit Japan

[Hip]

Hello,

I have recently found myself desperate to visit Japan. For about four years I've only drempt of it. A few weeks ago I woke up saying "i'm going! 0.0" to myself. Since then, I have never felt so strongly about going..Like I NEED to go.

I know a bit about the culture and a few do's and do-nots while there but I still don't feel like I have the grip on Japan that I would need. I visited quite a bit of sites that talked about personal experiences while visiting Japan and a few things not to do...But I found them very unhelpful.

I also find myself having a huge problem learning Japanese the youtube way...I end up repeating the person on the video about 10 times then getting annoyed with spaming pause and rewind on the part of the video where he/she is saying how to say 'The sushi was good!"

Right now, my main goal is to learn the basic words in Japanese, that I would need to survive while there for a few weeks..to a few months. I was also wondering, is there any sort of...how do I put this...'stay housing' where they take in and feed/provide help for foreign people looking to possibly stay in the country for a while(not perminately)? A lot of sites that i've looked on for possible guides or someone to talk to, expect me to pay just to sign up. F that.

So what do you recommend? O.o I'm open for suggestions because as of now...I'm lost. I bassicaly plan to visit the country and stay for weeks-months..maybe even a year if possible..So what would I need? As much as I'd love to live there it's too much of a hassle to get a visa...and my belongings and try to get a job in a place where the local tongue is required. I'd end up some freight guy overworked in a warehouse or a stockboy being underpayed....For what? To stay in a foreign country where I'm just a neive american who doesn't understand? >_< hah...

[ChisaChi]

I think the maximum you can stay without some kind of visa is 3 months, so if you're not planning on getting one that would be the longest you can spend there.

If you're planning on visiting the larger cities and touristy areas, I found there was quite a lot of English signage and it's easy enough to get by with very basic Japanese skills and a bit of miming I found katakana quite useful, as well as some basic kanji and phrases like 'excuse me', 'thankyou', 'where is...?', 'do you have...', ordering food etc. If you're staying for a longish period of time and not working, make sure you have a lot of savings... I found that Japan wasn't as expensive as I'd thought, but it's definitely not as cheap say, China or Thailand.

Hope that helps some!

[Paul11]

Look at the threads that have been opened over the past three days. There are a few threads over the last few days on learning Japanese and how to visit there, how long and how to do it and how to find jobs that will allow you to do so. I don't mean to be rude, but they are interseting threads that have a ton of info of the type you are looking for.

[Hip]

Thank you both and no you do not sound rude. i'm sure it's annoying to see similar threads posted all of the time. I was going to but i've done so much reading and searching the past week that my brain hurts so I just decided to post.

I'll look into those threads though...and 3 months? x.x oh noes.