Is Japan really that expensive?

I know many people believe that Japan is so expensive that you can hardly survive here, so I figured I should give you some information on that based on my experience.

Compared to Sweden, practically everything is cheaper here in Sapporo, especially compared to Stockholm.

Rent for a newly built apartment with 2 rooms and kitchen and furniture included:
64 000 yen/month (currently about 3770 Swedish kronor)
A small apartment for 1 person, usually without furniture, will be about 30 000-40 000 yen/month. If you're lucky it's quite possible to find one with furniture included though.
Gas, water and electricity is not included.
I paid 6000-8000 yen per month for the gas when I stayed at a dormitory. The gas is used for heating the apartment and for heating the water. At my current apartment, there's an electric water heater though, which I certainly hope is cheaper. It's supposed to be at least.

For food, I've calculated that I eat for about 500-700 yen per day when I eat at home, and I eat a lot compared to most people.

What's expensive at the supermarket are some vegetables and fruits, like kiwi and melons for example. They're really tasty though, so if you just buy them sometimes, it's worth it. Don't get addicted though.
Some nice department stores sell the exclusive melons for many thousands of yen, it's nothing people buy regularly though, usually people buy as a gift.
Stick to the moyashi (bean sprouts) and you can reduce your budget seriously, one quite big pack is about 25-30 yen (~1,7 kr) and they are incredibly good.

At the restaurant, a lunch menu can be about 600-1000 yen (35-60kr), and dinner, totally depending on where and what you eat of course, but on a typical Japanese style restaurant 900-1700 yen.
If you want to party, the all you can eat and drink offers is a good alternative. Costs about 2500-3000 yen for 2 hours of free eating and drinking.
In general, all restaurants hold a very high standard (compared to Sweden at least).

If you meet a nice girl/boy and need a double size bed, it's about 74 000 yen (4350 kr) for a nice one from Mujirushi (Muji in Sweden) including mattress.

A new bike: 10 000-15 000 yen (590-890 kr), an old bike: 3000-5000 yen.

Taking the subway: 160-300 yen per trip, depending on how far you go.

Electronic gadgets, clothes and shoes are all cheaper than in Sweden. Some things alot cheaper, some pretty much the same.

Of course, if you'll go to Tokyo or Osaka, most things will be slightly more expensive and the rent probably alot higher and you'll probably have to spend alot of time on the train to and from school.

The polite Japanese

I guess most people have heard that Japanese people are extremely polite and helpful. It's definitely true. Probably they're the best mannered people in the world, here it's almost like a crime to not be polite and helpful. Also the service in stores is outstanding, I appreciate it alot. Which is not so good since it makes me spend more money than I want to. I'm lucky that everything's cheaper than in Sweden at least.

Ask someone on the street where to find something and they'll completely stop what they're currently doing and do all they can to help you. If they don't have a clue either where to find what you're looking for, usually they won't say 'I'm sorry, I can't help you' (well it happens sometimes that they do), instead they'll call somebody who knows or just do anything they can to help you.
If they still can't solve your problem, they'll start bowing and apologizing time after time.

In Japan, people tend to say thanks or i am sorry if there's even just the slightest chance that someone could have been offended in any way. It's like it's always better to say it than not to, just to be on the safe side.
So, if you're only going to learn one japanese word, learn 'sumimasen'. An extremely versatile word meaning excuse me/i am sorry/thank you. You'll get very far with that word only.

However, I've found that on one occasion the Swedes are actually more polite; holding the door for the person behind you.

In Sweden, it's kind of rude to not cast a quick glance over you shoulder to see if there's a person right behind you when entering for example a department. And if there is, just put your arm out and hold the door a little bit when you enter, so it doesn't close right onto the person behind you. Practically everyone does that.

Here, in general, people don't hold the door for the person coming up behind. Maybe because the Japanese usually seem kind of stressed? I don't know, haven't managed to figure it out yet. Doesn't really make sense since on all other occasions, the japanese always take their time to be polite and helpful no matter how stressed they seem to be.

On the other hand, I can live with people not holding the door since it's very much compensated by their good manners on all other occasions. Like people not speaking on their cell phones or listening to loud music in the subway for example. That's just incredibly annoying in Sweden.

I've always wanted to live in a mansion...

And I thought I'd have more time to use the Internet after moving and having an Internet connection at home, HAH!

Been really busy with buying stuff and sorting things out with the new apartment, which is really nice by the way and the house is brand new actually. The rent's 64000 yen per month, which is about 3900 swedish kronor. Not too much for a brand new Mansion, is it?

Eeh? What's he talking about? Mansion?! Isn't that like a huge villa with 10 rooms, servants and a garden?
Well, I thought so too, but as you might know, things are often a bit different in Japan...
Over here, a mansion is simply an apartment with more than one room.

Anyway, our mansion has two rooms and kitchen and came with furniture and washing machine included, not so far from the city's central station. So, not expensive compared to Stockholm at least..

Also had an exam at school the this week, so I've been studying quite a bit. Got the result on Friday, the exam consisted of 4 parts;
1. grammar 2. reading comprehension 3. words and kanji 4. listening comprehension.
I got 100 out of 100 points on all the first three parts, perfect in other words. This big exam was easier than the tests we have regularly.
The listening part didn't turn out that well though, I got 79 out of 100 points, which is not that good. That part was quite difficult and it was the last part, which wasn't so good for me. As some people back home might know, when I'm a bit tired, I'm not a good listener at all.

Lack of updates

Sorry for the lack of updates, I haven't bothered ordering an Internet connection for my room, since I am leaving the dormitory soon and moving to an apartment with my girlfriend.
Haven't felt much like spending time and money on going back and forth to the Internet café either. I'll get an Internet connection for my new apartment as soon as possible though, so hopefully I'll have some time to write.
Anyway, here's a couple of long posts for you.

Advice on learning Kanji

This post is for you guys and girls also struggling with the kanji characters.

I'm not an expert and haven't studied kanji for much more than a month or so, but this is my 5 cents so far on how to learn them.

1. Study and repeat EVERY day. Don't take a break and not study for a few days every now and then and then try to catch up by studying like a mad man.
If you don't repeat every day, you'll learn them and then forget them again in a few days and start mixing them up with each other. It's better to study the kanji for a shorter time everyday than for a long time every 3rd day. But of course, it still takes alot of time, so try to find some joy in the studying. Otherwise you've gotta be really stubborn.

2. When you try to learn a kanji, associate it with the meaning it carries, not with its pronounciation. Otherwise you'll be in one hell of a mess as soon as you learn a few kanji. A friend here just got into this trouble, that's why I'm warning you.
Do you know how many kanji that has the pronounciation 'sha' for example? Try searching for 'sha' in a kanji dictionary and you'll see. It's quite a few. So, associate the kanji with it's meaning and think of its pronouncations as a separate thing.

3. Try to find the general meaning of each kanji and remember that this meaning can be slightly flexible. If you just learn that the kanji '外' in the context of '外人' (gaijin), means a foreigner, you'll be lost when you suddenly see the same kanji in another context. Instead, learn that '外' by itself carries the meaning outside, or something coming from the outside. Then you can figure out what it means in other contexts as well.

4. Make kanji flash cards. Get post-it notes and write the kanji on one side and the meaning and it's pronounciations on the other side. Keep the notes with the kanji you're currently studying in your pocket and look at them every now and then. I always keep them next to my bed and have as a routine to look at them before I go to sleep and immediately when I wake up. Actually, I notice that my brain is often thinking about these damn kanji immediately when I wake up, before I've even looked at them.

5. Buy an electronic dictionary with handwriting recognition. They're a bit expensive and I don't know if you can find them in other countries, but it's a really good thing to have. If there's a kanji I see but don't know, I write it on the screen of my Casio ex-word (xd-sw9100 if anyone wants to google it, I can recommend it) and it shows up with an explanation.
I bought the "Kodansha kanji learner's dictionary" separately on a memory stick for my electronic dictionary, which is very good. It's a dictionary specifically made for people who want to learn kanji, unlike the other dictionaries included in the Casio ex-word which is made for Japanese people and therefore shows the kanji you're looking for and example sentences, but not how to pronounce it. The Kodansha dictionary shows the pronounciations and how to make the strokes correctly when writing the kanji, so it's really useful.

6. Go to Japan! It's just boring to study the kanji when you're in a country where you don't have any use of your new knowledge. Personally, I just couldn't find the motivation to study kanji in Sweden. Here in Sapporo, when I'm in the city or anywhere, I always keep my eyes open for the kanji I know and feel a bit happy when I for once manage to figure something out. Like the name of the subway station where I'm supposed to get off for example.

Right now, I'm just worried about how I'm supposed to remember all the kanji when I return to Sweden and don't use them anymore.
For your info, the books we use at school is 'minna no nihongo'. Text book, grammar book and kanji book. We study about 25-35 kanji per week.

If anyone has more advice on how to learn kanji, please write them!

You've gotta love the kanji

When you return to your room at 1 in the night, not so sober and not really in the mood to sleep yet, what do you do? I guess most people would watch tv, play computer/video game, eat something etc. At least your answer probably wouldn't be drinking some nihonshu (sake) and sitting down to practise writing kanji characters for an hour.

Lately I have had a growing fascination for the kanji characters, the more or less complex Chinese characters used in the written Japanese language. Which of course is good since it's the most difficult part of the Japanese language to learn. Indeed it takes alot of time to study the kanji and it's easy to mix them up or forget how to write, even for Japanese people. Many of the other students (the Chinese doesn't have any problem with the kanji though of course) at my school seems to see the kanji as the troublesome, tiring part of the Japanese language and sighs alot about it. However, for me, it tells alot of interesting stories about the culture and how the language is constructed, which is a very good source of inspiration.

When first looking at a kanji I haven't studied before, to borrow a good expression from a friend back home in Sweden, it may seem like a 'brädhög', a pile of planks. And indeed, sometimes I­'ve felt like I'll never be able to remember all these strange characters, they all look alike anyway.
At those times, I've thought of the Chinese people in my class. The Japanese language use the kanji characters combined with more simple characters (hiragana and katakana) to form different words, which makes alot of different combinations possible. Therefore to learn Japanese, around 2000 kanji is enough. The Chinese language uses solely the kanji characters, which means they have to learn ten times as many characters or so.
So if the Chinese people in my class, which (no offense my Chinese fellows) seems like quite ordinary people, have managed to learn tens of thousands of characters, why shouldn't I be able to learn two thousand? It's quite simply alot of practise.

It's a satisfying feeling when you study something you've never tried to learn before and notice that your brain actually after a while decides that 'alright, if this is so damn important, I'll remember it'.
When you break it down and look at the different parts that makes up the kanji and write it a few times, it's ­suddenly not a brädhög anymore, and you can write it without any major problems. It's kind of like when I was a kid and built stuff with lego bricks. A feeling of creativity.

What I also find interesting is how the kanji is made up and how they are combined. My main reason for going to Japan was to learn more about the culture and how Japanese people think, and the kanji is an important part of that.
I'll give you a couple of examples.

If you can't see the Japanese characters correctly, I suggest you install the Japanese character set on your PC or you might have to change the character encoding of your web browser, because I am not going to spend time on posting the Japanese characters as images.

The Japanese word for interesting is 'omoshiroi', which is written like 面白い.
The first part, '面' is pronounced 'omo' and by itself carries the meaning 'face'.
The second part is '白い' is pronounced 'shiroi' and means white.
Thus, probably someone a long time ago thought that a white face is interesting and it came to carry that meaning, I guess.
Believe me, Japanese people in general and Japanese kids in particular still think so..

The kanji for man, '男', pronounced 'otoko', is two other kanji characters that is put together to one.
'田' which means a field, and '力' which means strength.
So, a man is a person who is strong in the field.

The kanji meaning like or love, '好' is also two other kanji characters that's been put together.
'女' which means woman, and '子' which means child.

It might seem a bit old-fashioned that a man is someone who's strong in the field, and to like or love is a woman and a child, but keep in mind that these characters wasn't exactly made yesterday.

One more example which I find a bit amusing.
The word for animal in japanese consists of two kanji characters, '動物' 'doubutsu'. The first kanji '動' (dou) carries the meaning moving, which is also used when writing for example a car, 自動車 (jidousha), which quite exactly means a self-moving vehicle.
Well, let's get back to the animal, 動物 (doubutsu). So the first kanji carries the meaning moving.
The second kanji, 物, means a (living or not living) thing or object. So, an animal is quite simply a moving thing.
Brilliant, isn't it?

For me, these small discoveries gives the written language a depth which the western languages doesn't have at all.
I mean, a word in english or swedish just consists of the letters that forms the pronounciation of a word. You learn that a certain pronounciation carries a certain meaning. The characters themselves however, doesn't carry any meaning at all.
Sure, it's practical, but boooring. Therefore, I can think it's kind of sad with the huge amount of katakana words (words taken from other languages, mostly american-english, which is written with katakana characters) used in the japanese language.
For many of those words there's already japanese words, but it seems to be kind of cool to write the foreign words instead, I don't know. In my opinion, it makes the japanese language lose some of its depth.

This is the good thing about learning a language as an adult, I have the ability to reflect and question why things are in certain ways.
Japanese people I talk to don't really seem to have thought much about how the language is made up, they've just learnt it as a child and accept that things are the way they are.
The bad thing is, if I'd have the mind of a child I wouldn't question anything, I'd just learn it and it would take a lot less time.

Sapporo by night

Photos taken from the JR tower at the Sapporo station, in the city centre.

Sorry about the quality, I'm lazy to find out how to post them with higher resolution at the moment. Don't have an Internet connection at home, so have to go to an Internet cafe.

A bit less than 2 million people live here. Sapporo is alot more densely built than Stockholm though, practically it's densely built city all the way without any big green areas. The city is surrounded by mountains with many good onsen baths and skiing slopes (I've been told).