Thanks for the info. I guess he was employed by Square outside Japan then, and sent to the mother company. I've read up on this and it seems to be a very common way to "bypass" the usual requirements.

The funny thing is that, in Kansai at least, japanese landlords are/were more reluctants to rent apartments to chinese, korean and american people.

I remember once that my french colleagues had a hard time to find a flat, then, once a landlord asked them where they were from and when they said they were french, he signed the contract immediately! prejudices, prejudices...

Yeah, I've heard that a fair bit in general (not area specific though).

I've been living abroad for many years now. Typically I have a job wherever I'm going, but there have been cases where I went somewhere without one. In those cases, my approach was to do as many interviews as I could on as many cities as I could, while living in hostels; and only once I had a job and was committed to a city I would look for a permanent room/appartment. Would you mind giving me an example of such a newspaper? A friend and I are planning to spend some time somewhere in Japan, and I think it would probably be best if we rent a place for the two of us for about a month, so I can work from there, and then I would take proper holidays and spend a couple of weeks traveling with the rail pass. But I would like to see if renting for a month would be possible & if it's actually cheaper than simply staying at a hostel.

You'd be better staying at a Gaijin house as it's just about impossible to rent an apartment in Japan for less than 1-2 years and many Japanese landlords are still very suspicious of foreigners.

Similar to a hostel, a Gaijin house is mainly for non-Japanese, except a lot of Japanese tend to stay there as well as they get to meet and speak to westerners so can practice their English. It's also an awesome way for non-Japanese to meet some Japanese people while they're in Japan, as in other situations the Japanese tend to be very shy.

You get your own room, a shared bathroom and a shared kitchen, so you can also eat cheaply if you don't mind cooking some of your own meals. Free internet is standard in all of them as well.

You can rent a room in a Gaijin house for as short as a few days or as long as a year or more. Rates tend to be cheap. They tend to be in great locations, close to subways, shopping and dining venues etc., and the standard of accommodation you get is usually much nicer than an inexpensive hotel for a lower price. Most also don't ask for a deposit.

Friends of mine have stayed at Gaijin houses in Tokyo for as low as $450 to $500 a month - or the equivalent of around $17 a night, and that's unheard of for any hotel in Japan or any hostel for that matter.

This website will get you started - it's a bit of a bitch to navigate, but you'll see the standards of Gaijin house rooms to rent and you can rent directly from the website. Do a search for other places to rent a room in a Gaijin house as well.

http://www.gaijinhouse.com/

And here's another one:

http://gaijinhousejapan.com/

Gaiijin, by the way, means 'foreigner' in Japanese :)

(BTW, I know all this as friends have been doing it for years, and I plan on going to Japan at the end of the year for at least a month and staying in a Gaijin house, so I've been researching them. All I need is a comfortable, clean room with cooking facilities close to public transportation and internet service, and i can work from anywhere :)

Hope that helps?

I left the US almost 12 years ago to move to Bangkok, Thailand. Been living in Bangkok since then. Would never live in the US again, but that's just me :)

Dead easy to get a job here if you don't mind teaching English, and salaries are good compared to the cost of living (not compared to US salaries of course). There is also NO need to be able to speak Thai (although I can), as most schools don't want you to speak Thai with students anyway, they want you to speak English, and it's possible to get anything done in Thailand even if you have to communicate with sign language and three Thai words :)

There is also a HUGE expat community in Thailand, as tens of thousands of westerners live here teaching English.

As for rent, I rent a large one bedroom apartment in a serviced apartment building that comes with cable TV and weekly maid service. I pay $350 a month, and my rent hasn't increased in 11 years :).

When I was teaching (I don't anymore as I own my own internet business), my rent was about 20 percent of my income. Income when I first started teaching was about 50,000 baht or around $1,550 - cost of living in Bangkok, though, is about 30 percent the cost of the US, so your standard of living on that money is very good.

Great thing about teaching in Thailand, though, is the sky is the limit for how much you want to earn as Thais will pay at least 500 baht an hour ($15.50) for a private lesson, or you can teach evening and weekend classes at a language school, so you can always make extra money if you need to.

My income when I was teaching with just my regular 7:30 to 4:30 job Monday thru Friday, plus two hours two evenings a week teaching corporate classes at a multi-national corporation was about 60,000 baht ($1,850). That's the equivalent of about $5,550 a month in the US, so I easily managed to save $500 to $800 a month.

I own a website about Thailand, and have a huge section of information on teaching English if you're interested to find out more:

http://www.tastythailand.com

And this is the section on teaching in Thailand:

http://tastythailand.com/category/teaching-in-thailand/

BTW, I HIGHLY recommend Thailand, Thais are the nicest people in the world. It's a cheap country to live in, yet you get high quality for your money. Thai food is amazing (and as cheap as $1 a meal at a streetside stall) and it's very very safe.

I'm female, travel all over the place by myself and have never ever had a problem with a Thai or felt remotely in danger. I take taxis by myself at 1am or later, and never have problems with taxi drivers, and walking around in Bangkok at midnight doesn't faze me at all. Something I would never have done when I lived in Los Angeles or San Francisco.

Hope this helps a bit?

Honestly, if you're looking for a new experience and a great country to live in, plus a place where it's easy to get a job, you couldn't choose a better place than Thailand.

For most teaching jobs, btw, you must have a university degree but......there are always ways around it, as thousands of people teach here without degrees and have done for years.

EDIT: BTW, if you ever are interested in trying it out, a studio apartment in the building I live in in Bangkok fis about 8,000 baht a month ($246) plus utilities, of course. It's in a fabulous location within walking distance of two big shopping malls, restaurants, bowling alley, 3 movie theaters, and only 5 minutes by bus to the underground train system or the skytrain. It might not be the perfect apartment for you permanently, depending on where you ended up working, but it's a great place to stay for the first month or two while you get settled in. Affordable, clean, very safe (24 hour doorman) and good location.

Let me know if you ever want more info. Delighted to help :)

It sure as hell does. I was in Japan a few years back and I have a lot of fun there, but I don't think I was able to spend a night for less than 20€ anywhere. Except maybe the night I spent on a "manga kisa", but I also had to pay a subscription fee so...

Anyway, I'll have a look of this with my friend and see what we end up doing. Thanks.

i loved bangkok

food was cheap , people were friendly although the thais do have a rep for being xenophobic

western style food is as expensive as back home if not more expensive , thai food from street stalls is for nothing really.
bottles of coke and packs of ciggies are so so cheap

the night markets are the best but most of it is fake - breitlings top quality no1 :P

patong beach and phucket were great aswell

You're welcome :)

There is also something called a 'Share House' in Japan. Same sort of thing as the Gaijin houses, yet tend to be more Japanese that stay there.

This will tell you what they are:

http://www.tofugu.com/2013/05/20/what-are-japanese-share-houses/

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And these are two websites where you can book rooms (just choose 'share house' from the options when you do a search):

http://www.sakura-house.com/en

Personally, I'd go for a 'share house' before a Gaijin house - but that's because I always like to be around the people of the countries I stay in, and not around a bunch of western travelers :)

Oh and btw, friends who have stayed in these types of places say, for the most part, the accommodation has been very nice.

Expat =/= Migrant worker/students taking a gap year IMO

LOL, not in Bangkok it doesn't.

Expat here usually means non-Thai who no longer wants to live in their own country and so lives in Thailand to either teach or own their own business (most other jobs are closed to non-Thais unless it's working for a mult-national company or doing something like being a chef or a DJ).

it also means non-Thai executive in an international company, and we have tens of thousands of those.

Most expats I know are age 30 or over, and have lived in Thailand for between 5 and 30 years.

Thailand isn't as closed as Japan for getting jobs though, from what I understand, so that's why we have so many expats living and working here.

Yeah, sounds like a pretty good idea. I live in hostels all year round, so being surrounded by western (and Australians!) travelers is so common that it's not so interesting anymore. And I should try to recover my rusty Japanese language skills while I'm there, I don't get many chances to practice.

Now I only need to clear out with my friend exactly when we're heading there, because that's a mess on its own.

Oh, and see if I can find a similar place in Slovakia, because that would be great. So far I haven't had great luck finding a nice Slovak language evening class, either, but I've only been there for a few days so I just have to keep searching.

Sorry, here's the second URL for a website where you can book share houses:

http://tokyosharehouse.com/eng/

Forgot to put it in my post :)

Dying sounds pretty risky to me - who knows how painful and traumatic it will be and what, if anything, comes after? ;)

What do you do when rent costs more than income (if any)? Do you have a full time job, or are you self-employed? Do your parents occasionally have to help you out?


I moved to the UK from Portugal over a year ago, with my wife and daughter (1month at the time..)

Various things need to be taken into consideration:
- Will you have local support? Ex. will you be working for a company, that might take care of legal arrangements regarding your employment situation? If not, you need to inform yourself behorehand of legal issues with you moving into another country - these will vary, depending on your citizenship, and agreements of your country versus the country you want to move in

- Will you have enough money versus the cost of living of the local country? Earnings 10.000 pounds a year is next to nothing in the UK, but its a fortune in the Philippines, for example.

- How safe (objective safety and rule of law) is the country you want to move in? Venezuela for example, is unsafe to even go out of your home at night... on the other hand, Saudi Arabia has some very strickt laws. If you are a westerner, you need to watch them very closely

- How free is the flow of capital? For example, is it easy for you to send and receive money from abroad from the country? SOme have capital restrictions (ex. you can only take out x ammount of dollars in that country). This CAN be an hassle, if you need urgent capital from abroad, or for any reason want to take money out with you

- Will you require special vaccinations to move into the country? Not a big deal generally, but these can be costly.

- Do you have pets you want to take with you? Moving pets abroad can be prohibitavely expensive.

- Is your Drivers licence valid in the country you are moving into? Can be useful.



To answer objectively to your questions:
"What do you do when rent costs more than income (if any)?"
This has never happened to me.. I wouldnt consider moving without making sure i can pay at least 3 months rent in advance.


"Do you have a full time job, or are you self-employed?"
I have a full time job; My situation was quite simple to be honest, since i actually moved locations, but in the same company. Plus, EU to EU moving has next to none legal barriers.


"Do your parents occasionally have to help you out?"
Not financially - depending on long you stay away from home, you will however have the urge of having them sending you a parcel with foodstuffs from your country (happens to me!!)