Learn how to cook for yourself. Nothing is sadder than seeing people live off microwaved meals from 711.
Also don't be an ass like me....or do because it's fun.
My go-to reply if they are in the middle of eating anything western is to basically repeat what they said in a sarcastic way.すごい! You eat rice?!Wow! You eat pasta?! You sure are good at using a fork.
Learn to love mediocre to bad coffee
Learn to look in unexpected places for really good value. Like instead of going to Costco for bulk spices, see if there is a "halal market" near you. They often sell uncommon spices in larger quantities for extremely cheap compared to both normal import stores (like Jupiter/Yamaya etc) and larger supermarkets (looking at you AEON with your 50g of paprika for 300 yen.)
Local butchers/meat shops are much more common as well - you can often get supermarket beating price or better cuts (including American or Australian/UK style cuts) for very good prices. Same goes with farmers markets/that local produce/local speciality store that's next to the station or michi-no-eki etc.
one thing I noticed from the GIH that wasn't really spelled out before is that transfers to different cities/pref. generally don't happen. makes sense, I suppose, given the selection process. for ALTs who generally want to see more of Japan, how often would you say you get to travel?
Last edited by Frap; Today at 18:46. Reason: sucker
You can travel every weekend if you can be arsed and have no interest in joining in with your community.
Great men of action never mind on occasion being ridiculous; in a sense it is part of their job.
Last edited by Frap; Today at 18:46. Reason: sucker
Let's just say considering I live in the absolute most inconvenient place for a person who wants to see every prefecture in Japan, in under four months I've already been to eight. The pay is good enough on JET that you can take a trip every month if you want to. And you wont even have to take a boat, a bus and a plane to get there. Lucky you!
"Community" on Jet usually means hanging around orphanages with gawky ALT resume-padders, or playing frisbee with some local octogenarians.
Fuck all that. Travel regularly at weekends, shag plenty birds wherever you go and get pished with salarymen. You'll earn a lot more respect than you would turning up to your town's basket-weaving festival in a yukata.
I can easily travel but haven't found a reason to after I went to the major sites and cities. Will eventually go to Hokkaido I guess.
seeing as 90% of Japan looks the same you really dont need to bother doing that stupid "visit every prefecture" thing.
Great men of action never mind on occasion being ridiculous; in a sense it is part of their job.
Yeah I figured that out once I heard it was a popular thing for JETs to do which is a huge red flag.
Last edited by Frap; Today at 18:46. Reason: sucker
Most of us realize it, but the really clueless alts, who want to do it, just won't shut up about it. They'll be like: so I went to miyagi today. it was so awesome. that's another prefecture off the list. I'll be like :so what was awesome about it? and get no response.
I don't even remember which prefectures I've been to. They're all a blur.