I currently live in Chiba City and am moving to Yamaguchi Prefecture this year. I’m trying to decide between Shunan City and Iwakuni City to live. The workplace is equidistant from both cities. I won’t have a car initially, but plan to get one soon. Looking for information on which city is more convenient, easy to live in, and has more activities to do. Any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated! Not much information available online about Yamaguchi Prefecture.
Also how reliable is Gantoku line for daily commuting?
4 comments
If you like very very loud jet noise then move to Iwakuni. If you don’t then I probably wouldn’t live there.
Currently live in Iwakuni, don’t really notice much airplane noise around town. The plus for Iwakuni is proximity to Hiroshima, we usually go to Hiro 3-4 times a month. Also, Iwakuni airport is really convenient and we have used it a couple of times to fly to Haneda, it also has a flight to Naha. For better or for worse, you will be seeing a lot of Americans in Iwakuni obviously. Shunan seemed nice enough the couple of times I have passed through, just more distant from any large city.
I spent quite a bit of time in Iwakuni working on the base before, during, and after the transformation of the base. The best thing that occurred was that Iwakuni now has it’s own airport right in the city. Prior to that I had to fly to Hiroshima and take a train down. It took twice as long or more. The entire city equates foreigners with Iwakuni Marine Base personnel. You will be cut off from base events because you are not SOFA and probably not accepted locally due to being a foreigner. If I didn’t have a base connection (which I don’t anymore) I would not live there. I’m sorry but I do not know anything about Shunan City except easy access to the Shinkansen and the islands look interesting. Shunan might be a good alternative to Iwakuni.
The airplane noise isn’t that bad unless you’re close to the base in iwakuni. I have heard more airplanes outside (but near) iwakuni than inside. Like others have said, you will forever be associated with the US marines at first glance. It depends on where in iwakuni, but the towns to the north, otake and waki are pretty gross, because they’re industry towns and have a ton of smoke stacks along the water putting out who knows what. In the end I don’t think iwakuni is that bad and you’re fairly close to Hiroshima for big city needs. Although when you start driving that road going to Hiroshima gets fucking packed because of the popularity of itsukushima.
I lived in shunan for a bit. It has absolutely nothing going for it except it somehow has a shinkansen station. Most of the city revolves around big industries like tokuyama chemical, there’s a hitachi campus in the town over (basically shunan), etc. They actually try to advertise the “night lights” of the massive industrial production works as “cool” and “touristy” which is hilarious. That said if you can find somewhere to live that isn’t near the chemical and other industrial factories, it’s not a terrible place and is your average “nothing special (truly) and has everything you need” to live small city. Although traffic is extremely bad especially during rush hours because of all the companies here, and the small roads/too many cars/too many stop lights.