Job Discussion Forums

Mosley · Joined: 17 Jan 2003 Posts: 158

To the OP: It sounds like yet another tiresome case of an effete newbie who wants the "system" to accomodate their wants, desires, schedules, fantasies, etc.

You yourself wrote that JET has a fine reputation...that's right: so play the game its way or forget it.

G Cth has given you fairly solid advice. And as an ex-JET, I can tell you that to say the the JET website "doesn't tell you much" is BS. It's spot on as far as I'm concerned.

Suck it up, play the game, or quit wasting the time of youself & others.

Cubic09 · Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:25 am Post subject:

cornishmuppet · Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 642 Location: Nagano, Japan

Down in Tokyo the other day I was wandering through Tokyo and looked at the ads for apartments just out of interest, and noticed a lot that didn't require key money. Most of them were 1K shoe boxes and still costing 50 -70k a month. I'm pretty big at 6ft and three years in a 1k didn't do me any harm. It actually helped to slow the spread of possessions that is aflicting me now.

If you look around its quite possible to find stuff without key money. It should be illegal but with the falling number of new tenants its possible to get better deals. For the apartment before the school housing I'm in now I 'negotiated' the key money, basically refusing to pay what they asked for and getting myself a much better deal. Still, they somehow managed to swallow up my deposit though....

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

So, Cubic, what questions are left unanswered at this point?

books on the JET program(me) are easily enough found with a Yahoo or Google search:

http://jet-programme.com/books_by_jets.htm
My Mother is a Tractor: A Life in Rural Japan
Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program
Getting Both Feet Wet
Learning to Bow
Japan Diary: A Year on JET
Hitching Rides with Buddha

Online JET stories about Japan
http://jet-programme.com/jet_stories.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/7947/japan.htm

Total time searching: 6 minutes

Cubic09 · Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:09 am Post subject:

Never Ceased To Be Amazed · Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 7:42 pm Post subject:

Cubic09 · Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 5:44 am Post subject:

cornishmuppet · Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 642 Location: Nagano, Japan

Someone's mother? Laughing

Cubic09 · Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 3:39 am Post subject:

Apsara · Joined: 20 Sep 2005 Posts: 2142 Location: Tokyo, Japan

I may be wrong, but I had thought that key money was far more common in the Kanto area and some other big cities than elsewhere in Japan. Key money started off as a bribe to the landlord in the postwar era when housing was still very scarce, so became institutionalised in many urban areas. I had heard that in other areas though, key money is less common. Are you seeing a lot of demands for key money in more rural areas?

Cubic09 · Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 8:33 am Post subject:

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

What sort of accommodation are you looking for? If you land a job, likely as not your employer will have something lined up. If not, then many employers at least have addresses of places where you can look to get housing.

Face it, do rural areas in your home country have online sites for housing?

Cubic09 · Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 3:14 am Post subject:

G Cthulhu · Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 4:45 am Post subject:

ripslyme · Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 481 Location: Japan