NagoyaHammer.com

Just something that I've been thinking about recently due to all the discussions about the size of our local (and not so local) gaming group.
How long are you planning to stay in Japan? Are you here for a few more weeks, a few years or like me, until they kick you out?
Personally, I'm settled here. I have a wife, a good job, good friends, a pension, life and health insurance, a savings account and a dozen other things that would be hard to leave behind were I to ever go home.

How about you?

I have no plans to go back to the States - my home is here, for better or worse.

yup, me too - im here till im dead or they kick me out. Like Prim, ive been here too long to make moving back "home" a practical option. (In fact, Ive been here exactly the same length of time as him. A while back, we worked out that we actually arrived on the same plane. Wierd, huh?) id consider moving somewhere else in japan if i needed to (work or similar reasons) but i have basically put my roots down here, for better or for worse.

It's a tricky one to answer. I think a lot of foreigners who are here for the foreseeable future would rather not admit it and just let the years roll by. A bit like when you are back home and people in dead end jobs working in offices with no windows say "I'm not gonna work ere for ever" and they stay until 65/67.
Personally I would love to live here until retirement and after that if it is an option go back to my beloved Devon and die of a heart attack after eating too much Clotted Cream. Well hopefully not quite so dramatic.
I can't see living in England as an option right now simply because the job market is a little bleak to say the least like most places and I have a job here. I could be a Primary teacher there if I did the PGCE but my sister is a teacher in secondary and the amount of paperwork she has to do on top of the teaching is insane. Balls to that.
I do miss it though, the England of 8 to 15 years ago that is. I get a bit nervy of it when I visit London these days. It's not the positive city it once was I feel. That's the economy though, hopefully it can recover some day soonish. A lot of people are getting by though and waking up to having a life without buying meaningless shopping and stuff. That's why we should hold on to the models we have and not worry so much about ones we can't get in the future, especially if they are cutting down on making them due to the oil.

Actually I don't mind where I live as long as it's not a busy city.

I'm here until my daughters have both finished education so that would put it at around 2033. After that I shall be splitting my time between Turkey, London, Thailand, and Japan.

I have no interest in working past 55. I have even less interest in retiring in Japan.

No clue. Anyone got a crystal ball?

I go through periods where I think life would be better back in the homeland than here. Whenever I go home I fall for the trappings of Western civilization: decent breakfast cereal, peanut butter, easily accessible movie theatres with movies worth watching, central heating. But at the end of the day it's all just stuff, and I've got enough stuff as it is, thanks.

My social life is here. Granted, it is overwhelmingly gaikokujin-centered, and it certainly shows in my language skills, which is beginning to reconcern me, but there you are. Combine that with reasonable health care and child care costs, it's an acceptable, if not ideal, situation.

There are other issues, most financial, some social, that keep me from declaring myself a Permanent permanent resident. For the forseeable future, however, y'all's stuck with me.

The plan is that in a few years me and my wife will have one place each in Sweden and Japan to go back and forth from, being able to run the company from both places. When we get kids however we are planning to have them go to kindergarten and primary here in Japan and then Sweden for Junior High.. After that the kids can choose for themselves and we will go back to moving back and forth. I don't mind retiring here in Japan though and will probably die here too, I love this country and lately after going back home, realized that I actually feel more at home here.

Seb wrote:The plan is that in a few years me and my wife will have one place each in Sweden and Japan to go back and forth from, being able to run the company from both places. When we get kids however we are planning to have them go to kindergarten and primary here in Japan and then Sweden for Junior High.. After that the kids can choose for themselves and we will go back to moving back and forth. I don't mind retiring here in Japan though and will probably die here too, I love this country and lately after going back home, realized that I actually feel more at home here.

I too feel more at home here than in England but that doesn't say much as I can't stand living in London

Out of interest, what kind of business are you and missus running?

Well, she is the one running it I am just there for some advice and emotional support at times. I also help out moving products in and out of the storage etc..

Anyway at this stage it is a trading company doing only import/wholesale but there are lots of plans on expanding into more areas, doing export etc. It is still a very small company but we are hanging in there and will eventually see it grow into something bigger.