Anyone done any WWOOF'ing?

No, its not a dog action, its World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. There's one for Japan, and I intend to do it. It seems pretty good (if you don't mind hard labour).

Check it out if you want a cheap trip to Japan!

http://www.wwoofjapan.com/main/

Im going probably next year in March in my gap year.

Anyone else heard of it, or any other cheap ways to live in japan?

 

-Eat Cup Ramen
-Never leave your home

 

- Marry a rich Japanese woman (pref some model with issues or someone whose family owns or runs something fairly large)
- Learn to cook and like Japanese food, Japanese vegetables are cheap, non Japanese ones are not. Gaijin Punch is wrong about cup ramen as making it yourself with the seperate parts is much much cheaper. I also hate making my girlfriend a decent curry as the ingredents cost a ton and most indian resturants in Japan don't really do a really good curry. I do love simple meals with various vegetables, miso, rice, natto and some grilled fish.
- Buy a bike and like cycling 50km plus (or at least reasonable distances), it will save you a ton of money on train fares (basically the money I saved cycling for three weeks was enough to buy me a decent second hand mountain bike)
- Like green tea, it's cheap enough and make it and stick it in a flask on trips out so you save the 100+ yen from a vending machine
- Know when your local supermarket has their special days where certain things are much much cheaper...
- Wait several months and then some more before buying games.
- Love the internet, it's cheap and basically pisses over what they call a service in the west.


My GF knows someone who did the reverse and went to Canada to do this and really enjoyed it.

 

Not if you live by the "time is money" thing. I'd make myself food all the time, but in the long run, as I really have no free time, it's not worth it. If you're broke and w/ no job, then yeah...knock yourself out.

I second the bike thing, for many reasons... the least of which is economic purposes. Better for the environment, health, and gives you freedom car doesn't (at least in the city).

I remember when the internet was fabulously expensive. Those were rough times.

 

I know some people who have WWOOF'ed in both Japan and outside, it's fun if you don't mind some labour by hand.

 

Yeah, i like the thought of hard labour.. (in a farming way ). The problem is that I probably could only get a tourist Visa, which means 90 days max! Though i am looking into a Working Holiday visa.

I think you missunderstood my talkings, i think i know how to live cheaply, but how to live and stay in another country as a starter is something which seems a hard thing to do. However, I'm applying to University over here in England to do Japanese Language, but whether i get in or not is unknown. Becuase after Uni, I can get into the Japanese JET program alot easier!

I guess there has already been topics about the JET program? (ill have a look)

 

You really don't need Japanese for the JET program though.


If you're from the UK, a working holiday visum is a very nice option although if you can get that I'd rather get a different job (bartender, teacher) than WWOOF jobs. I'm not fully sure how long the tourist visum is for British citizens, I believe it's actually 6 months? And you can always take a short trip to Korea/Taiwan, shouldn't cost you much and as long as you don't do it more than once it shouldn't prove to be any problem at immigration.

 

Ah right, nice idea! I was wondering about that actually.. Question was, when can you apply for another visa when you leave Japan? I do do Karate, maybe there is a route in that to get a good visa. I heard if you got a high enough grade that getting a visa is easier.

 

You don't apply for a visa when you leave Japan, if you do the little Korea/Taiwan trip you just get a second visum upon entering the country again.

 

A tourist visa is issued upon entrance, for people of qualifying nationality. I think they're lax about it these days, but if you've done the Korea thing multiple times, they might ask you what the fuck you're doing.

 

They do seem to be stricted about it now, I got pulled aside after returning to Japan on a two week business trip to Taiwan recently (was in Japan for a month previously), they let me go as I had enough money to buy a ticket and I could show that I was did go to a business meeting having business cards of various galleries and government departments in Taiwan. I also had some business cards of various Japanese people in galleries, museums and local government too and I said I was going to relax, meet a few people and do a lot of cycling. So they stamped my passport and let me go on my merry way.

 

Time to do some reading!

http://www.jetprogramme.org/e/introduction/index.html

Humm, i think ill pass on the korean trip to and forth for now.

 

Wow, after only a month? I can understand if you used your visa all the way up, but that's pretty fucking stupid.

 

I did the trip to Taiwan and besides the fact that the guy behind the counter said I was crazy for only carrying around 10.000Â¥ and that I didn't know where I was gonna sleep (I had my own house, but he didn't know that) it wasn't an issue at all. Wouldn't recommend doing it twice though, they're quite anal about that nowadays.

 

So you left the address part blank on the card when you entered the country? I think that's a no-no anywhere.

 

I filled in Kyoto, and then just told the guy in Japanese that I was gonna look for a hotel upon arriving in Kyoto. No problem. I've left it open in the past when I entered Japan as well because I didn't know the exact address of my family, so back then I just wrote down the city name too.

Tbh, why wouldn't you be able to do that? I travel on the fly all the time, especially in Japan with capsule hotels and such.

 

You know, I find that the older I get, the more apt I am to prefer a home cooked meal as opposed to something prepackaged or in a restaurant.

The other day I bought what I thought was Japanese beef jerky from an oriental fish-market type place. Turns out it was freakin' OCTOPUS jerky. The nastiest shit I've ever had in my whole life. I an only imagine what else people eat in Japan and greater Asia.

 

What are you on about Hawanja.. 'OCTOPUS jerky' is lush stuff, a bit chewy, but other than that top notch!

 

+1, I love that stuff.

 

Just one of those weird things. I'm a US citizen, and US immigration got all huffy when I wrote down some goofy address on where I was staying. Their world is that little booth, and they're going to wave around the leader stick.