declan_murphy@hotmail.com wrote:
> necoandjeff wrote:
>>declan_murphy@hotmail.com wrote:
> 
>>>Sounds like you are from Adelaide or Perth. If you can't find a good
>>>school in Tokyo but want to experience the big smoke Japanese style
>>>your only other search options would be Kansai (Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto/Nara)
>>>or the urban part of the Chubu (Nagoya/Toyota/Toyohashi etc). Sapporo
>>>& Fukuoka are basically large country towns, though they feel more
>>>like cities than most parts of Tokyo.
>>
>>Nagoya is like an even bigger country town.
> 
> In the Sydney, LA or Manchester sense yes. The urban area is only 7
> million or so, but when you cross the Mikawa-ben & Owari-ben border it
> feels like a different city, which I don't hear going from say
> Shinagawa down to Yokohama.

Then you haven't been listening too closely.  Crossing the Tamagawa is 
entering a completely different country.  When you get to Yokohama you 
have to start worrying whether you need your passport.  Or, maybe those 
infamous Kanto nuances are just too subtle for you ...

>>Very unlike Tokyo in many respects.
> 
> Fortunately yes. A lot more nonbiri, but becoming obscenely well off.
> Main difference between Susukino, Roppongi, Umeda, Nakasu and Sakae is
> that Nagoya's district drips money.

For all of the nights I have spent in different Japanese cities on 
behalf of clients, I have to say that the least enjoyable have always 
been in Nagoya.  Then again, I finally learned to stay in Sakae so I 
could at least get some decent yakiniku.  The degree of unnecessary 
ostentation in some parts of Nagoya is positively sickening.  And the 
government people in the offices I usually have to call on treat me like 
a long lost brother in Osaka or Fukuoka or Sapporo but are complete 
assholes in Nagoya.

Especially in Nakamura-ku.  Let's not get me started on Nakamura-ku's 
komuin.  At least not until I am friendlier with this here bottle of 
mugi-jochu.

CL