Come Visit Japan

[Elmer the Pointy]

Me and the significant O are planning out a home-stay service where one can come stay with us and experience Japan for a vacation. The rough idea is you pay some lump sum and we provide traditional meals, lodging, wireless fiber optic, and show you around towns and historical sites.

We live in a good location in that it offers the big city, while surrounded by small towns with many historical sites and natural landmarks (like Mt Fuji). Also, Kyoto and Tokyo are both just 2 hrs away, which isn't bad for a day trip in either direction.

The trip can be tailored to ones tastes, so like if you want to stock up on manga, it can be ordered for you in advance, since our friend runs his own bookstore. If you want the cultural side, we're familiar with many temples and castles, as well as some good natural hot springs up in the mountains. We also have no shortage of friends who are always anxious to meet foreigners and are excited about the idea.

We're aiming for the summer, but are still researching the idea. Anyway, since everyone likes to ask BG to do their homework and decide their lives for them, I thought I'd brainstorm with you guys.

Any interest, questions, suggestions, etc are welcome.

[Sigi]

Awesome idea! o_o

If I weren't a poor-ass college student that's about to face student loan repayment, I'd be all over this.

Would be nice to have a pricing outline (like X amount for food per day, etc), other than that... wow.

[Lexa]

I think that sounds like an awesome idea! Just gotta be careful so people don't dick you over. Also, how would you schedule a tourist around your regular life?

PS. Brb robbing a bank so I can get tickets nao!

[Maguspk]

Do you own a house or something? Curious about the accommodations but this sounds really interesting and I haven't heard of anything like it besides simply participating in a foreign exchange or study abroad program for students. Also, just a rough estimate how much do you think it would run on average for the services you provide, not including stuff like the flight down or the cost of the housing.

[Demosthenes11]

I used to want to go to japan
then I heard they have huge bees
fuck that

[Elmer the Pointy]

Just gotta be careful so people don't dick you over. Also, how would you schedule a tourist around your regular life?

Yea, there will definitely be an application process, just to require some effort and gauge the person's personality amongst other safeguards.

As for making time, I work several jobs in translating and teaching, but the schedule is pretty loose. There is a lot of interest within my friends too, and they have cars and criminal amounts of free time. Still something to plan out, though.

Would be nice to have a pricing outline (like X amount for food per day, etc)

PS. Brb robbing a bank so I can get tickets nao!

That's one big issue, what to charge. It's obviously going to have to be somewhat pricey, and then there's a plane ticket for the guest to worry about. I'd like it to be somewhat accessible to young people interested in Japan, which is why I posted here.

For food, I figured we'd use a catering service that delivers groceries and then cook ourselves. It's a flat rate based on how many people you order for which would make it easy to determine cost for the guest.

Do you own a house or something? Curious about the accommodations but this sounds really interesting and I haven't heard of anything like it besides simply participating in a foreign exchange or study abroad program for students. Also, just a rough estimate how much do you think it would run on average for the services you provide, not including stuff like the flight down or the cost of the housing.

No house but an apartment where you get your own room. We thinking tatami for the JP 'feel' but maybe not for the huge repair bill when you spill juice on it. Anyway, it'll be a nice sized personal room, close to the heart of the city and station.

I hate to throw out a number and look retarded, but based on researching other programs, let's start with $500 a week and work from there. I think a good set up would be traveler pays airfare and bus ride to our town. The bus goes direct from the airport to our station, so it's really simple for us to get you. We reimburse bus fare ($30), and give a daily stipend of $10 for train/bus each day. In the end, you paid us $400, and the train/bus rationed money helps keep that aside in case of emergency.

Services I guess would be stuff like showing you how to cook Japanese dishes, teaching the language or calligraphy... other stuff is being considered like a pre-paid phone for texting if necessary, the pre-ordering manga or games you'd like I mentioned... a lot of ideas are out there. Feel free to suggest any people may like.

[Elmer the Pointy]

I used to want to go to japan
then I heard they have huge bees
fuck that

Don't worry, my area only has huge spiders.

...

[Beckwin]

500 a week is very reasonable for food and board. You need to start figuring out what kind of length of stays you want to deal with and corresponding itinerary. Like someone who is gonna stay 2 weeks is gonna want to run around a lot, do a lot of sightseeing, eat out more frequently, etc while a 2 monther would fit into something more of a daily-life routine and might focus on some kind of larger goal (language immersion, maybe hiking/outdoorsy stuff, lots of museum/art time, or spending a lot of time on historical sites in the area, etc).

edit: and I mean you need to start thinking about itineraries because of associated expenses and how it would affect your own day-to-day life.

[Ziphor]

d'aww man, I want to take this offer so bad... next summer, if your still offering, I will probably apply. By then I'll have Japanese I, II, III courses taken, making the trip a lot more enjoyable.

Good luck with planning this! I wish I offer advice, but I have no clue with this sort of thing.

[Osede]

I think air ticket would be around 1k~1.2k USD. But best advise is that don't travel to japan in august period, since this is also jp's vacation time >.>


good idea, but too bad I got cousin who liv in tokyo now, which he asked us to stay with him if we ever going to japan ever

[Blarg]

Do you offer dolphin slaughtering lessons?

[BerenTebogo]

Would be interested seriously for me and the wife other than starting a new job this summer so will be extremely busy.

Maybe for the winter though, we eventually want to move there for our own reasons, would be a good stepping stone, maybe I could also talk to you a bit about general cost of living there vs. Boston / New York area U.S.A.

[Metah]

For those of you who are interested: The plane ride there is a MONSTER.

But that's cool of you Elmer. I had just gone in November 2007, and its a very cool place to go to. Tokyo, at least, haha

[Weltall]

Awesome idea; I just wish you lived closer to Tokyo ;(

[noblemountain]

this is actually something i'd be very interested in. i'm pretty sure i can get a military transport for free to the island...if not i know i can to hawaii and a ticket from hawaii to japan isn't "too" bad. i'd much rather do something like this than stay in a hotel and roam around aimlessly.

[Ishido]

Pretty cool idea, I did a homestay 2 years ago and it was a ton of fun.

Kinda wonder how staying with people who speak fluent english would change it.

[Tomiko]

Very cool idea. I'd love to go, but I already have vacation plans for this summer.

Plus I'd get to meet Elmer if I went! :elmer:

[Mikayla]

I used to want to go to japan
then I heard they have huge bees
fuck that

Don't worry, my area only has huge spiders.

...

why

why do you do this to me

I was so interested in applying for this offer until I saw you say this. I can't stand spiders, the bigger they are the worse it is.

[Churchill]

You can get commercial for like 800-900USD but meh. I just usually do a MAC flight and pay 25 bucks.

I may be interested in this around Christmas, I had planned to visit back to Japan then, I hope to get to Peru around August. ;/

[TaruMortis]

I used to want to go to japan
then I heard they have huge bees
fuck that

Don't worry, my area only has huge spiders.

...

why

why do you do this to me

I was so interested in applying for this offer until I saw you say this. I can't stand spiders, the bigger they are the worse it is.

Lol, this makes me think of THE spider pic.. the one that's like in the corner of the ceiling, and is huge like xbox.