Top 10 Reasons to Come to Japan

#10:You like to live in a shoebox & sleep on the floor.
#09:Spending 10.00 US for a hamburger & fries seems reasonable to you.
#08:Standing in line for an hour and getting on a train to be squeezed like a sardine sounds like fun.
#07:Sumo;gotta love those fat boys.Anyone hungry?
#06:Where else can you eat raw fish & not look strange?
#05:J girls.Need I say more?
#04:You enjoy living in a country where you cannot understand anyone.Hey at least you don't have to talk to anyone.
#03:When you get on the subway no one will sit beside you.Hey lots of elbow room.
#02:Did I mention J girls?
#01:You can get promoted from sales clerk at MacDonalds to sales "jerk" at MacNova.
This was rattling around in my head so I thought I would have some fun with it.
-Shonai Ben

Note: Originally posted on the Let's Japan message board on February 26, 2003.

Interesting list you made. There are of course many bad things about living in Japan (as are there in any country in the world), but I also think there are many good things. As for me, I like that I don't have to pay 35% in income taxes as I did when I worked in the US, I can actually afford insurance here, and for those of us interested in learning Japanese we have the chance to practice every day.

The biggest reward for me living in Japan is that I get to experience so many interesting and weird things (good and bad) on a daily basis; things that I would never experience back home. Sure, my apartment is smaller here, its a little expensive, and I experience the occasional racism, but its a world more interesting than my day to day life was back home.

I also like living and experiencing another culture; both the good and the bad. To me thats what living in another country is all about. For me being in Japan isn't about hitting the gaijin bars every night or seeing how many Japanese girls I can take home in one week. Its about learning about everything good and everything fucked up in Japan, learning Japanese, making interesting new friends, seeing the country, and really experiencing another culture in a way that could never be done with a short visit. I've had shitty experiences here (getting hit by a car, getting refused an apartment because I'm white, and so on), but I've also had great experiences here (climbing Mt. Fuji, travelling to Hokkaido, Shikoku and Okinawa, watching my friend's dad--a chef in Ginza--prepare fugu, staying with a great host family for six months, and so on). As with any experience its all what you make of it.

For those considering coming to Japan I think you should ask yourself why you want to come here. If its just to party I think thats cool, but I don't think you should expect to get a whole lot out of your experience here.

After I leave Japan I'm looking foreword to living in another country for an extended period because I think its the best way to get a true cultural experience.
-Arcanum

Lets not forget these 5 reasons.
5. Getting payed fairly well just to shoot the shit
4. All the BJ's. I mean, there must be a sexual etiquette class in high school or something.
3. The opprotunity to see your culture from the outside
2. Next to ZERO responsibility for anything when your drunk.
1. Men with puiny peckers are not laughed at(as much).
-Omei

I gotta agree with the BJ's. Japanese girls LOVE the . Sweeping generalization yes, but I stand by it. It cancels out the occasional racism and the food for sure.

I like the individual styles here too. Don't feel like washing your hair for a few days? No problem. Wanna wear green pants? Hey whatever. Sh@t just doesn't matter. If my buddies back home saw me riding a bicycle with a basket on the front of it they would drop some serious beats on me.

Now if we could only turn them around on smoking fat blunts...
-tie domi

Let's not forget Nomi hou dai. (All you can drink).
They never saw us coming...
Fools!
-fivefivefive

BWHAHAHAHA. Damn straight! I've been drinking with my Aussie buddies to places where they try to make us pay more because "you drank too much". At one place, after we had been drinking Corona's solid for an hour, they told us that they were out of Coronas. But later on we saw them carrying Coronas to other customers! Mwhhahahahaha. We came, we drunk, we farked you up! LOL!
-MacGyver

Beer gardens- imagine if they had beer gardens like Japanese ones back home Macgyver. It would be completely and utterly out of control. All you can drink, now there's a challenge I'm willing to take on. My missus doesn't like the beer gardens because she reckons the food ain't much good at most of them (can't argue much there).

I tell her "well dear, they ain't called food gardens are they?" I always drink the first 7 or 8 beers fairly quickly because after that, based on an entry price of about 3000 yen to the beer garden and 450 yen a beer at bars/restaurants, I'm in the bonus round and that's where all the fun starts. Nothing better in my book than sitting outside on top of some building on a sultry summers eve with some good company and totally violating yourself with alcohol.
-valve bouncer

Nomihoudai in Oz....Man, people would die. It would be insane. Carnage, dude, carnage.You're wife is right. The food does suck. But as you say you don't go to eat the food. You go to destroy your liver...hehehe.
-MacGyver

My introduction to nomi hou dai was a little spot in Shibuya a few years ago.The cost was 1600 yen between 6 PM and 8 PM. I didn't bother with beer; I went right to the cocktail list and bring on the Black Russians!!!

Close to 8 PM, after nearly consuming my body weight in vodka and Khalua, our server dude says it's last call for the nomi hou dai....what did I want?

I asked, "What's the biggest glass you can put my last Black Russian in? Surprise me."

The guy brings me a 20 oz. beer mug with a handle on it FULL of Black Russian.

DOMO ARIGATO!!!!!
-The Crippler

While drinking with two Aussie mates making 3....the waiter comes up and tells us 'nomihoudai rasuto order'....
so my mate orders 12 beers.....
There is a good nomihoudai in Minami Koshigaya for 980 yen....
-Clanning

Beer gardens are a hoot when you're out with the mates, but what if you are trying to impress a nubile young chick-babe and want to get rolling drunk at the same time?

For you guys in Osaka, I recommend the bar at the top of the Hilton bteween 5 and 8 for happy hour 2000 yen nomihodai for up to 3 hours and CLASSY!!!

If you really want to impress, haven't eaten for a few days and still have some money left from your eikaiwa salaries, the downstairs on the 2nd floor is a great tabehodai.If you go after 8pm its a bit cheaper, leaving just enough for a "rest" on the way home if you're up to it...Guaranteed to score points with chick-babe
-Mawashi