cc wrote:

> "Eric Takabayashi" <etakajp@yahoo.co.jp> wrote in message
>
> > Just what is wrong with the Tohoku area?
>
> Nothing wrong. You gave the explanation yourself.
> In addition, I was talking to a person that didn't say she already knew
> Japan and the language, so she may feel "isolated" there. Not everybody
> likes that. You know there are gaigins that suffer from the lack of choice
> in pizzas, English books, people to talk to, etc, in Osaka !
>
> > Finding some house fee simple, with land in Niigata under one million yen
> > is not a problem. If not for the 40 km to the highway onramp or 25 minutes
> by
> > car to the station in some cases, in heavy snow,
>
> Then you fly to your workplace ?

I would do what white collar Japanese do.

> Or your job follows you anywhere you move ?

That is also a possibility.

> I remind you that you often told us your wife had problems finding a job in
> not so rural where you live,

Still does. Now she plans to work out of home.

> so she'd do what over there ?

There are part time jobs like she currently does, anywhere.

> I hope she likes
> gardening, knitting, driving 2 hours to go to the supermarket, talking to 90
> yr old neighbours.

Funny, that's what the island two hours out of Hiroshima where we met sounds
like, where she needed bus, ferry and train to go to school every day, then
back in time to her part time job at the supermarket, where I was the only
Western foreigner I ever knew in the entire town.

> > Since other home buyers in this group are willing to throw around 40
> million
> > yen at a time, or take on 35 year loans, you should see beauties like
> this:
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/q5hd
>
> 30-40  km from Himeji ?

I am already considerably farther than that from Japan's better known cities.
So are most Japanese.

> I could commute easily, 1 or 2 hours in car or helicopter, 1 hour of
> Shinkansen, then the subway. Or 15 minutes of car, 1 hour of train, then the
> Shinkansen.

People who work or go to school in Tokyo do it twice a day. I knew a high
school girl who commuted four hours each way to Fukuyama, while also unable to
sleep or study the entire time on the bus or train.

I also know a woman who goes to university in Kobe.

From Fukuyama.

> No thanks ! Life is too short.

Strange the people enamored of Tokyo and Tokyo only, do not think so while they
waste their lives standing on trains or waiting in traffic. And they probably
do not live on three acres of grass suitable for keeping horses, in a truly
Western looking house with detached, enclosed garage. You would have more
trouble finding one of those in Hawaii at that price.