hooooooh
 

so many negative coments for japan bro ,why is that...?i lived 3 years in Tokyo,and i liked it.just one thing i hate most about the people there,they all are kind off silly,no wait!!it's not the right word...hm...they act like nothing happened,for example i said something bad for Teido or someone else,but he says only "why you call me baka,what i did to you.." and later he comes to me and starts talking like nothing hapend...lol man..if i call someone stupid or idiot in my country ,probably they'll kick my ass...whatever,there are no racism in Japan if you ask me ..i have worked on different places (three or 4) and everywhere i worked,no one told me that i'm stupid migrant or things like this ,they never acted like i'm different ,all of them were japanese dudes.
i just dont know how to coment the "racism thing"...never heard of it.
for 3 years i met only 2 or 3 guys and 1 girl ,which didn't realy like me.but that doesn't mean ,that they are racists or something ,maybe i'm bit ugly who knows.....))))
eventualy i come back from japan few weeeks ago,and now i say how beautifull and kind people i met there ,and here in spain they are kind too,so they looked at me surprised))).now they want to visit japan too(and maybe live there who knows).
i also got some corrections about my language,because i dont realy know how to use verbs and apropiate language,they like to use very much "respective" words if i can say it this way.
anyway...dont get disturbed by many negative coments,go to japan in a year or two u will understand how to live there,how to speack to people in respective way of course.
btw i'm born in bulgaria and i can say that there ,the people are "colder" they aren't very...how to say...the other word for hostile)))..whatever..
i liked japan because there are very cute girls ...maaann!!!!you gotta be blind ,to say that japan is not good ,but thats me!

What is bad about Japan?

for Japanese:
High Humidity
High cost of living.
Earthquakes


For a foreigner:
Depends on person.
mostly social problems like making friends, how they are treated
some people end up loving their stay-some people end up hating their stay.

All the problems mentioned in this thread don't worry me half as much as this crazy thing.

The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World | Cracked.com

^_^

As long as I don't run into any of those, I will count my trip to Japan a success.
:mtongue:

One experience I had in 1987 was my co-worker and I were eating at one of those places you cook your own food on a small grill located in the center of the table. This was in a small town close to the Air Force installation we happened to work at.

A group of businessmen were eating there as well and, through interpretation from the restaurant owner, we learned they wanted to buy us drinks (and perhaps engaged in conversation). We politely responded that we were thankful but we had to decline because we were going on duty right after dinner (I hated mid-shifts). We looked at them as the onwer explained the situation and they gestured politely in our direction. We thought nothing of it and continued with our dinner, which continued even after they decided to leave the establishment. They waved to us as they left and we waved back. When it was time for us to leave and ask for the check, the owner said the businessmen had paid for our meal and, due to our situation, were disappointed we couldn't drink with them. We never saw those businessmen again.

I don't know if they were being polite, appreciative their government didn't have to shell out billions more for defense because we were there, or they perhaps were genuinely nice people:it didn't matter to me. That left a mark that to this day has been with me.

That sounds like a nice situation. Sometimes Japanese businessmen will buy you drinks and kind of take over your bill half way through a conversation. I wasn't there in your situation so I can't make anything but assumptions, but I'd bet they were interested in you guys and genuinely wanted to have a drink with you and just ended up paying for you guys as a (really nice) gesture.

One thing that is atrociously bad in Japan is addresses. Could anyone have come up with a more difficult system even if they tried?!

It's not even like it's only difficult for us poor gaijin. It's difficult for everyone. Even taxi drivers familiar with an area can have trouble finding places purely from the address. In the little village (it's really quite small) I work at couriers are almost daily coming into our office for assistance on finding where the offices are of other businesses. They have the correct address and everything but as those of us who live here know that helps very little at times.

Is the concept of having a number and street name really so difficult to comprehend?!!

^ Wow. Why don't this courier companies use the same guy per location? That's going to be tough to keep the 'Next Day' Guarantee if couriers don't know where the addresses are at.

On the positive side, nothing like an outdoor onsen in the snow.

Please tell me about the addresses etc-- Do the streets not have names and the houses Numbers? How confusing that must be!!!

It's pretty bad if you're not used to it. Some streets have numbers... but that won't really help you too much as a lot of streets have the same number (even in the same general area). Not only that, but the same street will change numbers part way down the road... or the street (judging by the number) breaks up and starts again.

I think that instead of street numbers, there are intersection names. Most major intersections will have a name. The problem, however, is that smaller intersections (like on unusually small roads) don't have any names. Intersection names generally coincide with the machi / cho name (which is like a town or village... basically a way to break up a city into smaller sections).

Unfortunately, those intersection signs are usually pretty small and not lit at night time... and they're also in kanji. If you are from the area, you've probably heard of the town (even though you may have not known where it was up to the point of you seeing the sign) so you can read it. If you haven't heard of it before, you might not be able to read it (even as a Japanese). The same kanji/combinations of kanji can sometimes be read different ways, making communicating your location a little more difficult.

When you get into the mountains, it becomes infinately harder as signs are usually even smaller (if they exist) and roads seem to go all over the place. Some roads stop being roads in the winter time (due to snow of course), and that makes navigating moutains that much more difficult.

That is my interpretation of it anyways... some areas are easier to figure out than others in Japan... that's for sure. I'm sure I've missed a lot in my explanation. They have navigation systems now, and if you don't have one you're pretty much screwed trying to get somewhere you haven't been before-- I know a few people who don't have one and they are usually older people who are just masters at navigating their way around (because they are professional drivers or do a lot of driving for work).

PS: I've heard some areas actually have street names.

My address for instance is 8-150 (numbers altered for privacy ;) ) kita (north) 4 jo, Higashi (east) 4 chome. So we are in a block near the intersection of the 4th main road north and 4th main road east of the rail station which is ground zero. The number at the start of the address is not a house number but the lot number of the land we are on. There are no numbers on houses and no street names. So unless you have a map with the lot numbers in this block you really have no idea which house is ours purely by the address, you just know the general area that it can be found. When we first moved here and started getting stuff delivered to our house (from say buying stuff over the net) the couriers almost always had to call us to get directions. Now thankfully most of them know where we are. Not too many other gaijin living nearby.

Up in the ski village I work at every single address is xxx-xxx Aza Yamada. There's probably a few hundred houses and buildings in the village. Again none actually have numbers on them and the number before Aza Yamada is again the lot number. The lot numbers have no real order as they depend on when a subdivision of the land occurred. Anyway you get the idea again unless you have map of the all the lot numbers there's no logical or easy way to find an address. And such maps are not readily available. Even when you have one, as most of the couriers do, try finding a 6 digit number out of hundreds of lots in this whole village. No wonder they usually just head into an office and ask for help.

Anyway as I say one of craziest address systems you could ever imagine.