Hi, I am okinawan and live in Okinawa and am interested in moving to the mainland but no idea where to start. For context, I am a Japanese citizen but my Japanese is really bad. I am currently studying but growing up here in Okinawa, all my friends speak English and ive always worked on base. I’ve only ever visited mainland a few times, like Tokyo and Osaka. Is there any advice you can give? Do you think it’s a bad idea? Should I visit mainland more? To be honest, I am interested in living outside of a busy city, somewhere a bit more quiet and less crowded. Thank you for reading.
9 comments
Okinawa is the pinnacle of quiet and less crowded in Japan….why mainland?
Well its not a bad idea if you don’t like it there but first you need to find a job on the mainland or get a transfer from your company.
I can’t imagine any of the major city being less quiet though. It’ll be quieter out in the country side but its likely you’ll still hear planes and helicopter, just not nearly as often.
You can try moving near another military base. There are a handful of US bases that are outside a large city, have fewer tourists and you can maintain speaking English for work (the base).
Well, if it were me I’d stay in Okinawa and possibly out to the other islands.
I just want to say congratulations on a very good decision
Okinawa is one of my favorite places in the world and number one place in Japan. Perhaps you would like Hiroshima, my second fav? Its pretty and there are plenty of English speakers. The problem with the countryside is lack of English speakers. I lived on the island of Shikoku for 2 years, its very quiet and beautiful. You may like it. Your friends will almost all be English teachers unless you look REALLY hard.
There are a lot of quiet places in Okinawa, I’m sure you know where they are. Even in places like Okinawa city, I lived in an older neighborhood, and it was the sweet spot despite the bases nearby.
Now, there are tons of quiet places here in mainland — Tohoku for example, you can be living by the coastal towns or in the middle part of the region. In my experience, it’s really quiet out there that sometimes it’s deafening.
Kagoshima is beautiful, cheap, great food, mild weather, and plenty of space.
Might be a better idea to visit first. Saitama is pretty chill, not too far from Tokyo as well. If you want a much smaller town, Otaru is pretty nice, in Hokkaido, so lots of snow in the winter tho. Also hear good things about Beppu.
I imagine Osaka might be more lax with you not knowing that much Japanese.
You could try Nago as well.
A bit off topic, but are there any news sites or sources that concentrate more on Okinawa? Haven’t kept up with what’s going on there so didn’t know about the monorail, or military base expansion.