I've been reading travel posts, and the most developed asian country that fellow pros live in is South Korea.

Have you guys considered Japan?

The current prime minister is deflating the fxxx out of its economy, causing yen to drop values. The cost of living in Japan, especially for food and such, has been steady for last 20 years.

Fyi, I would stay away from Tokyo or anywhere east in Japan due to radioactive fallouts, but Osaka is the place for food, women, and nightlife.

Still way more pricey than SEA countries.

I guess the other issues are visas (possibility to stay long term?), language barriers. Weather maybe. Not so easy to date locals, is it?

I'd love to try tho. If only I was making the same money as 5 years ago...

Well, it's cheaper than europe. Getting housing is not difficult since there are enough supplies.

I think you'd be doing way better though since exchange rate has hit the bottom deck for more than 2 years now.

Can you give us some exemples of prices in USD?

Like

A 1br appartment close to the city center? (btw what is the deal in terms of contracts? 6months mini? deposit? Agents?)

Local home cooked meal? In a restaurant?

Western restaurant price?

One month membership in a gym?

Glass in a trendy pub? Bottle in a club?

Transport inside the city?

I don't know about city center, but if you are looking for an apartment near Namba (the main hub for the subway) or Dotonbori (shopping and food concentrated area), you are looking at ~$1000 usd.

local home cooked meal = depends on the menu, but steak don (meaning slices of steak on rice with special sauce)

800 Yen = 6.5 US dollars



Western Rest = depends what you like, but around 15 usds

Glass in a trendy pub? Bottle in a club?

def cheaper than anywhere in the west. a pint of beer would cost u $4 bucks import/export. don't know about bottles, but as long as u don't go to hostess clubs where you choose girls to sit down with u and have her serve u alcohol and light u cigarette kind of stuff, u will be fine.

gym wise, it's the most overpriced in the world, costing u 80 bucks per month.

(gold's gym or konami sports club)

I spent ****ing forever trying to figure out how to live here. I talked to relocation specialists, spent over 10 hours researching online for myself, even tried to hire immigration lawyers - spoke with about five of these guys, and its impossible to try to live there for 2-3 years as a poker player. I'm now looking at other environments that are more happy to accept me with open arms with other benefits. Uruguay leading the charge presently.

So yeah, that's why I'm not going there. There is already an Osaka thread tho unless you purposefully started this new thread for the title.

I've got a buddy of mine, an American, living in Japan for more than 2 years playing online poker. I mean it could be an hassle, but he takes advantages of cheap flights from Osaka to Seoul, Korea. Cheap Flights ($30~$50)


It's probably the best place, which could be accepted by all people, for grinders to have a lot of fun and eat healthy.


I did not purposedly start a new thread, but that old thread is dead imo.

So just visa runs and get another 90 days each time, no questions asked? It surprises me from a country like Japan.

Can you tell us more about your life there? Typical day? Typical night out? How is the dating thing?

Is this a serious post?

Osaka is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and Japan is a notoriously hard country to get a long-term visa for.

Are you really on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui?

Damm I loved that place, I went there for the first time in the Summer of 1990, 25 years ago. Back then it was literally just dirt roads and coconut palms and $6/night beachfront bungalos. I went back in 2005 and I was shocked, paved roads, Starbucks, McDonalds, don;t get me wrong still cool place, but I liked it so much more when it was still pretty much undiscovered except by student backpackers.

briefly researched japan as it def is my most wanted country in Asia to go to. Asked on reddit and they just said no chance. visa are too hard + seems far too exepnsive

Yeah I have been living here for nearly 10 years now.

I went to Sihanoukville, Cambodia last year. It is a lot how you describe Samui back then. There are also some other islands nearby that have nothing but beach huts. Maybe you should check out Koh Rong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh_Rong

This. Got to be a troll OP. Japan is also a very closed society (many are also saying a very racist society, just to let you know).

Koh Rong looks awesome! When I stayed on Koh Samui for about 6 weeks back in 1990 I was probably around the age you are now I'm guessing. Now I'm 50, 2 kids blah blah lol so jet-setting to a Cambodian island sadly probably isn't in the near future, but I can live vicariously through you!

So how many Phangan Full Moon Party's have you been to? Funny, in 1990 you heard about them but they were just starting to ramp up and of course not nearly the scene they've become since. I went to two of them in 2005, what a blast!! I'm guessing they've only continued to grow since then.

Also spent some time on Koh Tao in '05 which was cool too.

How's the poker ex-pat community on Samui? Internet fast and reliable? Man, to be young again and live there and take advantage of the steady stream of foreign chicks just looking to party for a week or two, what a life!!!

i'd be very surprised if that was an acceptable thing to them. if such a thing is possible, that is cool and i'll look into it for a future stop but im kind of doubtful I could get away doing that.

i would happily pay more for a flight and just use that as an excuse to travel for a week every 90 days since there's so much culture density over there but yeah, im just not getting the proper vibe even though it does seem like the place to be in the whole world if it were legal.

How am I a troll? You are not considering the currency exchange rates. Have you even ever been to Osaka?

http://www.theguardian.com/news/data...ing-2012-tokyo

That's Tokyo...

Additionally, that data is outdated as the currency exchange dropped a ton since "Abenomics"

If you bothered reading past the headline, it says that Osaka is also in the top 5 most expensive cities in the world.

And the Euro to Yen is almost exactly the same now as it was in 2012.

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?fr...to=JPY&view=5Y

Just spent a week in Osaka. Granted it was January and probably the worst month of the year to go, but was still good fun. Girls are confirmed beautiful, was with a girl though so no stories to tell in that department. Seemed to be a lot of strip clubs / karaoke places and hooker bars, but would doubt the girls are hard if you're a white boy.

Seemed pretty expensive for me, was $100 a night for a tiny hotel room and $4 a beer seems low. When you throw in some cocktails / shots etc. the bar bills definitely get up there.

I think it was fun to visit, but overall SEA >> Japan to live in imho. Girls are prettier, infrastructure and internet are certainly better, but Japan isn't exactly a laid back country so I was fairly happy to get back to Thailand and go back to doing whatever the **** I want. Also, found the standard of English to be much worse than Thailand.

You can't smoke on the streets too, that was weird. I got fined 2,000 yen twice. I thought everyone was looking at me because I'm white, but apparently it's because I was illegally smoking everywhere.

I don't think it's as racist as it once was. I knew a black truck driver who married a Japanese girl when he lived there and her parents liked him so much they bought them a new house, not sure if he was full of it though

maybe nobody wants to pay the key money upfront for the right to even rent an apartment.

Didn't hear about this, but I actually tried looking for an apartment for a month in Osaka and it was hard to find anything really. I later found out from a friend living there that foreigners renting apartments for a month isn't really a thing.

Apparently Air Bnb is a good shout if anyone decides to go that route and April is meant to be the nicest time of year. I got that info when I was already there and didn't want to stay longer than I booked.

On visas it was very easy for me. British passport gets you 6 months without a visa, I didn't research if you can visa run and re-enter over and over again though.

Yeah, airbnb is pretty much the only option for a monthly stay.