Best location in JET

[par92186]

So I'm curious....what is the best town, city, or prefecture to be placed and why? I assume it varies a lot on the person and other JET's going to a certain location each year, but as a general guess.....which location/s are typically the best?

Some examples for being "the best" could be based on, weather, seasonal events, accessibility to transportation around Japan, food, nightlife, BOE, and amazing apartments. Of course I am eager to hear all perspectives, so let's hear it! Also, I'm most curious about the locations with the best apartments, BOE, and food.

[Ini]

all of japan is basically the same. some bits are hotter than others, some are colder, saitama has more rapists. Doesn't really matter, you're going to end up in the arse end of nowhere dreaming of moving to tokyo and eating the same old shit as every other JET in the country.

[word]

Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture.

Best castle in all of Japan. Only an hour's drive from some of the best snowboarding in Japan. Easy expressway access to Tokyo or Nagoya, also good, fast trains. Not too cold in the winter, not too hot in the summer. "Young" feel, unlike Nagano City (so f*cking old and crappy), plenty of young people and trendy shops and sh*t, as well as a decent community of expats. The last Matsumoto ALT I knew had a f*cking MASSIVE house near the school grounds that was provided rent-free. Fewer rapists than Saitama.

[Gizmotech]

Anywhere that isn't tohoku or hokkaido. Fuck winter.

[mothy]

Not Saitama.

[Jiggit]

Not Saitama.

I heard there was a nice cafe there one time though?

[MJN]

all of japan is basically the same. some bits are hotter than others, some are colder, saitama has more rapists. Doesn't really matter, you're going to end up in the arse end of nowhere dreaming of moving to tokyo and eating the same old shit as every other JET in the country.

I think something's massively bittered me, but this. Japan is annoyingly, depressingly.. same-y across the country. Buttfuck inaka tohoku looks like buttfuck inaka kyushu, you'll have the same 109 year old baachanosaur narking at you to do your bins right, you'll have the same odd sense of rot because all the young people have fecked off to Tokyo.

What makes it different in the weather, really. It turns pink, white, green, and orange at different times for different lengths.

That's not to say it's not beautiful, though. Sometimes.

[johnny]

I love my city. It's cheap and convenient. I am an eight minute train ride from a shinkansen station. From there I am a half-hour away from Hiroshima and about forty-five minutes from Fukuoka.

I live in one of the smaller cities in Japan that is actually growing. My schools are packed with kids and enrollment is increasing next school year. We don't have a Starbucks, but we have a lot of really nice cafes in the area that serve really nice coffee.

It doesn't get very cold in the winter, but it gets really hot in the summer.

Also, my BOE is pretty damn good all things considered.

[OdysseyOfNoises]

Kyoto City.

[Ini]

Kyoto???? There's fuck all to do there apart from look at "ancient" temples that get rebuilt every 25years.

[Teishou]

Hokkaido has the best food.

[Ini]

enjoy your food while you are freezing to death, shovelling snow and being hundreds of miles from civilisation......

[Kdes23]

ITT: Don't go to Saitama or you'll get raped AND everywhere in Japan is the same.

[Ini]

pretty much.

[coop52]

Everywhere is hot in summer, cold in winter, and has big bugs. You should choose your placements by how likely you'd be run over by an old person.

[Kdes23]

You should choose your placements by how likely you'd be run over by an old person.

That should be easy. Just find out which dealerships sell the most kei-trucks and that'll be your dead give away to stay away from those places.

[Ini]

i dunno, I reckon a kei truck would come out worse off if it drove into me at low speed, those things are made of crepe paper. its the old dears driving 3lt toyota crowns but are too small to see over the steering wheel that you need to watch out for.

[MJN]

I'm surprised no one has brought up bathtubs and sand yet.

[Ini]

oooo, good point. If you come to Saitama you will get raped but the 2 highest profile cases of rape and murder of foreign women happened in Chiba. Basically if you have a vagina stay out of kanto.

[BeckyJones]

Anyplace outside THE city is going to be pretty similar. I could show you a photo of Nagoya, Sendai, Fukuoka, Kyoto, Kanazawa, Niigata, Maebashi, Tsukuba, Mito, etc etc and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Once you get out of the urban area, the countryside is also pretty damn homogenous.

I.E. the point of this post, and the point of a lot of peoples posts here. There really isn't that big a difference, and if/when you come here you will probably find that place to be to your liking. So don't think about it, or worry about it unless you are really affected by the weather (i.e. hate the cold... don't go north)