Does Anyone Else On Here Live In Japan But Outside Of Tokyo?

TokyoJoeblow

TAG Member
Joined
Apr 23, 2015
Messages
3,278
Reaction score
2,084
I assume that most of the users on this forum witihin Japan are probably living or staying in Tokyo, but are there people living in other cities in Japan?

I sometimes watch some J-vloggers on youtube that live in various cities and they make those places out to be interesting place to live as well.

I know there is no place like Tokyo entertainment wise in Japan (maybe Osaka comes close).

Does anyone on this forum live in Kobe? It looks like a really amazing city to live in. I have visited there about a decade ago and really enjoyed it. I wish I saw more of the place aside from the harbor area. Is Kobe just as expensive or a little cheaper? Aside from Kobe beef...what are the costs like for everything else there?

There is a lot going on in Tokyo and Osaka, but the both just seem like really expensive/crowded places to live. Kyoto used to always be a place I wanted to live and work the most since my first visit to Japan when I was a teenager but now I feel that it is just too touristy.

I love living in Shizuoka, but it would be nice to change cities once in a while for a little variety in my life.

Fukuoka is another city that looks like a great place to live and those outside food stalls look like places I could eat dinner at all the time. I will take a vacation to Kyushu first and check out the area to see what I think.

Sapporo, Hakodate and Aomori were really fun, but just too cold for my taste.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AliceInWonderland
We have members that are from all over Japan. Some are lurkers, some are not. Not sure how many will respond here but we definitely have members from all over.

Personally, even though I live in central Tokyo, I would love to live out in the country on a more regular basis. Having a condo in Tokyo would nice, but my real home would ideally be some patch of land out in the countryside. (but close enough to get FTTH internet service, haha.) I originally had set myself up to commute via Shinkansen from Shizuoka to Tokyo... but after a few test runs, I found that I probably couldn't handle the stress of traveling that far everyday.

If I didn't need to stay in Tokyo because of my career, I wouldn't. But, still, the idea of keeping a pad in Tokyo for those nights in the city would be most ideal.
 
I was waiting to hear what other people outside of Tokyo had to say before I posted, but I guess we`re few and far between. I live a couple hours outside of Osaka/Kobe. No city within site; small town with wild boars running around at night and snakes in your shoes in the morning kind of town. When I want to let loose I head to Osaka. Osaka has cheap beer, friendly people, and people talk to you without refering to the fact that you`re a foreigner or that you speak Japanese so well. I`ve travelled throughout western Japan, and in my opinion, nothing compares to Tokyo or Osaka for entertainment. I could tell you why I love life in the countryside, but I guess that`s for another thread.
 
Kyoto is not very appealing. Crowded with tourists, settled in a basin and thus very hot in the summer, the time-consuming and fragmented public transportation, the famous difficult attitude of the Kyotoites... not even free daily Yatsuhashi can make up for that :confused:

I've lived in a larger city not far from Kobe for one year and used to commute to work into the city. Kobe has never really recovered from the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake, yes, large parts of town have been rebuilt and still look new without the bizarre mix of new and old buildings which every other city in Japan has. But apart from the area around Sannomiya station Kobe is dead. After the earthquake a lot of the businesses have moved to either Osaka or Himeji. I like the city, it's compact (sandwiched in between the mountains and the sea), easy to navigate and not too crowded. There is no real local identity though, the Kobe dialect has almost vanished, the Hanshin Tigers are a generally Kansai thing, Kobe beef is actually from the north part of Hyogo prefecture (Tajima). What's remaining are the Yamaguchi-gumi, Fukuwara, shoes and a few houses built by foreigners in the 19th century.
 
I have never really lived in any other cities besides my hometown and Tokyo. I may start missing to live in a countryside one day but just not yet. I do have a few friends from high school I meet once in a while but I have lived in Tokyo for many years now, most of my friends are in Tokyo, I went to school here, got a job here, basically my life is here.
It is not easy for me to move somwehere completely new and restart from zero.
 
I live in Osaka, it's much cheaper here compared to Tokyo especially the rent. I really love visiting Tokyo and it's the only city in Japan I would move to if I were to leave Osaka. Yokohama or Kawasaki might count as well due to the proximity to Tokyo. In terms of size Tokyo is just to massive for me, while Osaka's size is perfect for me. It's easy to go to Kobe, Kyoto and Nara. I sometimes envy the other TAG peeps who live in Tokyo because most of the awesome reviews on this site are all in Tokyo. Our lovely ladies of TAG are also based there, the shops in Yoshiwara that I would like to try. We got Tobita though and the other chonnoma and I will visit Fukuhara sometime next month. For me Osaka is home.
 
It is not easy for me to move somwehere completely new and restart from zero.
It's not really restarting if you're moving back home or to a similar area. It's just the adjustment after having lived in Tokyo for so long...
But yeah, if you're going somewhere totally new, it can be a shock.

About Osaka and Kyoto --

I love Kyoto but too many tourist... I thought Tokyo was bad until I saw Kyoto for the first time and then repeated trips there. ALWAYS so many tourist clogging up the buses trains and taxis. Love the culture and history of the city though.

Osaka is more of a business destination for me. The only time I've been to Osaka for 'fun' was to go to the theme park there. Every single other trip I've made down to Osaka has been for business. Aside from wandering around Namba after working hours, I haven't seen much else of Osaka. And, I find that I'm kind of turned off on how the girls down there talk... weird, I know.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Manami TMK
I live in Kyushu. The only happening city is Fukuoka, though I will say the drinking scene in Nagasaki and Saga are amazing but not really as full as Fukuoka namely Oyafuku street (I think I spelled that name right roughly translate to street of misbehaving children). This street has numerous bars and clubs with varying cover charges, foreigners are abound mainly Americans. There are Bars scattered throughout the city with a BDSM club somewhere in the city, I haven't been so don't ask. If you are into the small bar drinking scene then Nagasaki and Sage are for you. I have heard some things mostly good about Kitakyshu from my friends, my Japanese friends say the Yakuza are big there lol. Female wise if you are a PUA, then I would suggest either of the 3 but strongly recommend Fukuoka mainly because most of the girls there, once again depends on them if they want to, I can't stress this enough, are looking to go home with someone or are looking for a BF. You will run into a LOT of Filipinas in the bars and clubs and 9/10 end up going home with them. There is a nice Red light district but only a few cater to foreigners mainly out of the girls only speak Japanese and they do not want to take the time to explain things or use a translator, so if you are proficient enough in Japanese to have conversational Japanese then you are in luck. With Universities almost everywhere the Softbank Hawks calling it home and 2 rival soccer teams within close vicinity near by, there is NO shortage of fun to be had in Fukuoka.
 
I assume that most of the users on this forum witihin Japan are probably living or staying in Tokyo, but are there people living in other cities in Japan?

I sometimes watch some J-vloggers on youtube that live in various cities and they make those places out to be interesting place to live as well.

I know there is no place like Tokyo entertainment wise in Japan (maybe Osaka comes close).

Does anyone on this forum live in Kobe? It looks like a really amazing city to live in. I have visited there about a decade ago and really enjoyed it. I wish I saw more of the place aside from the harbor area. Is Kobe just as expensive or a little cheaper? Aside from Kobe beef...what are the costs like for everything else there?

There is a lot going on in Tokyo and Osaka, but the both just seem like really expensive/crowded places to live. Kyoto used to always be a place I wanted to live and work the most since my first visit to Japan when I was a teenager but now I feel that it is just too touristy.

I love living in Shizuoka, but it would be nice to change cities once in a while for a little variety in my life.

Fukuoka is another city that looks like a great place to live and those outside food stalls look like places I could eat dinner at all the time. I will take a vacation to Kyushu first and check out the area to see what I think.

Sapporo, Hakodate and Aomori were really fun, but just too cold for my taste.

of course there are forumers here outside of Tokyo

I myself, am from Kanagawa

what do you think Tokyo's the center of the universe and the other planets and stars are revolving around it
 
of course there are forumers here outside of Tokyo

I myself, am from Kanagawa

what do you think Tokyo's the center of the universe and the other planets and stars are revolving around it

Umm..of course not. The website is called Tokyo Adult Guide right? In my previous post I said that I assume most forumers on here are from Tokyo, not all. I was just curious what other parts of Japan do people on here live in. Obviously. you are in Kanagawa. Which part? Yokohama? Kamakura? Kawasaki? Odawara?

As far as adult entertainment goes...Tokyo just might be the center of the universe haha.
 
Yeah it's pretty nuts how many tourists there are in Kyoto now. Thinking back to even around 2011 or 2013, I recall it being rather "normal" in terms of how many foreigners I saw when doing my own touristy things. But now it feels like more than half the people I see at temples or at Kyoto station aren't Japanese. Thankfully I've never found them to be a huge nuisance in terms of getting in the way of travelling, but there are times I do feel they take away the Japanese atmosphere from the city.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AliceInWonderland
In Yokohama, and don't really get up to Tokyo much. Not that I can't, it's just that I don't want to. I've got issues being in such a massive unorganized clusterfuck, and my anxiety goes into hyperdrive reeeeeeaaaaaaly quick in Tokyo, so I avoid it most of the time.

Love Kyoto, as it has such awesome history and culture, but as others have said, it's become too touristy.

As much as I love Yokohama, I probably need to move out of the city for the sake of my blood pressure. Unfortunately, kind of hard to get to work then.....
 
  • Like
Reactions: TokyoJoeblow
I'm in Gunma, the mountains are nice but there isn't much to do here. I'd like to live closer to Tokyo, maybe in Saitama.

It's a catch 22 here... I would much prefer to live in the mountains or some rural area, but definitely would miss some of the Tokyo activities.
To satisfy my sanity, I go out to the mountains every other week or so when the weather is nice... spending a day cruising around the mountains and small towns is pretty relaxing. Luckily, I live in a very quiet area but there's almost no green around me aside from a park that's about 400 meters away. All I see is concrete and asphalt... that's depressing.
 
It's a catch 22 here... I would much prefer to live in the mountains or some rural area, but definitely would miss some of the Tokyo activities.
To satisfy my sanity, I go out to the mountains every other week or so when the weather is nice... spending a day cruising around the mountains and small towns is pretty relaxing. Luckily, I live in a very quiet area but there's almost no green around me aside from a park that's about 400 meters away. All I see is concrete and asphalt... that's depressing.

Very similar to where I am in Yokohama. Concrete everywhere, but a couple decent parks nearby. Definitely nothing like getting out into the country though. Need to get out one of these days.....maybe next week when I've got Thurs/Fri off.....
 
  • Like
Reactions: TokyoJoeblow
There is a ton of green here in Shizuoka, but also a balance of concrete. I will visit both Sumatakyo and Atami this month for their famous autumn views.

I highly recommend either of these destinations to anyone. Of course, most of Japan looks great this time of year.
 
It's a catch 22 here... I would much prefer to live in the mountains or some rural area, but definitely would miss some of the Tokyo activities.
To satisfy my sanity, I go out to the mountains every other week or so when the weather is nice... spending a day cruising around the mountains and small towns is pretty relaxing. Luckily, I live in a very quiet area but there's almost no green around me aside from a park that's about 400 meters away. All I see is concrete and asphalt... that's depressing.

I guess one wants what one cannot obtain.