I expected to find some of the best powder snow on the planet and found it plus so much more. I had been here on ski holidays for over 4 months on a couple of trips before deciding to live here. I know most people on this forum love Japan for it's cultural aspects but for me it was and always will be the amazing climate and landscapes. I've grown to love many aspects of the culture of course but it is the natural world that is most important to me and what I fell in love with here. To live in an area with a large group of people who also love the outdoors and snow and snowsports has been a great experience. Some of the happiest times of my life have been here in Japan.

I too went there before anime and manga was as common and popular as it is today... Ranma and a few others were the only ones around. I didn't choose Japan for that reason, though it was a plus. I wanted a chance to live and work in an overseas country. I looked at Peace Corp, teaching in Korea and Taiwan, and several other options and decided JET and Japan were the best choice, so that's where I went. I knew no Japanese at all when I got there, and like the girl in your anecdote, I knew that I would never learn enough to be truly fluent and comfortable there. Plus, I'm just too independent to fit into Japan's group-based culture. So I saw it as a temporary adventure, a limited time to make the most of, seeing and doing as much as possible before heading home. Staying permanently never entered my mind.

I found this article about living in Japan and how even long-timers still are seen as foreigners and will never integrate. I've been watching NHK for a while now and Peter Barakan hosts the program Begin Japanology and I've often heard him speak in fluent Japanese and often wondered how he would be treated there. I thought it'd be an interesting read....

Mind the gap, get over it: Japan hands | The Japan Times Online