How can I meet Japanese people?

I want to meet Japanese people. I don't mind if I meet guys or girls, but I'd like to make one or two friends.

I'd like to learn the Japanese language, and maybe exchange gifts occasionally from each other's countries.

lol
Thank you. Those are definitely good answers.

I live in the US. I'm 35, and although I'm far from rich, I make decent money as a programmer. There are some Japanese people who live in the same city I do, but the only ones I've met are the owners of a Japanese grocery store.

I should have been more clear in my original message, but what I was hoping for was a way to meet Japanese people online. I honestly hadn't even considered meeting people in person. But I was thinking that it would be nice to learn Japanese by speaking it with a native speaker, and also to occasionally send each other things from the other side of the world.

I actually came to this site because all of the searching I've done to find such an online pen pal (for lack of a better word) led me here. I was pretty surprised when I got more responses to a question about an ume tree than I did for this question.

I'd like to make one or two friends.

After one decade living in Japan, I can honestly say that it is easier to get a cancer than to make Japanese friends. All my friends here are foreigners, all of them. Foreign friends, Japanese acquaintances.

Check your inbox, please.

I'm going to co-sign on what Don said, its really hard to make Japanese friend. My first time in Japan, all people i connected with were westerns, even the Asian people i friend in Japan were not Japanese.

I did make two cool Japanese friends and one of them was really open minded.

From a Japanese perspective, it would be difficult to make friends with Japanese unless you belong to Japanese community like a company, school and so on.
In other words, it should be pretty easy if you do.

I agree, it's really hard to make Japanese friends if you weren't in their community like school or work, but I don't even think that I can do that in where I'm from too so... I have no comment, lol!
However, I've been trying to make friends online on an app called HelloTalk since last year, but I couldn't make any long-lasting-friends. That might be because I don't have anything interesting going on in my life, so I have nothing to talk about except my interests and hobbies which aren't much and not really interesting to them because it's something that have to do with Japanese media which appearently they don't care about and think normal(It's of course normal though!!).
I had two friends who I talked to for five months I guess, but then, suddenly stopped responding which I think because they dropped the app. Nevertheless, I talked to a lot of Japanese people and practiced my Japanese and gained a lot of experiences/knowledge otherwise I wouldn't.
You can use HelloTalk, it's an app for android and IOS. Or maybe, ITalki? But keep in mind, both are language exchange platforms so you have to help them practice your native language as well. That might keep your friendship last longer as some people told me before. The latter has a relatively cheap online tutoring as well so you can try that too.
I'm not sure, but are you studying Japanese or want them to teach you?
At last, replying to Don, I think you have to try harder because there is nothing that is called "A whole country-thing" like... 100% of the people are the same. Maybe the people around you are like that. Sorry if I misunderstood anything!!
Wowowow!!!! sorry my reply is soooo loooong!

Therefore I am really nervous to visit Japan alone.... I think I will be alone all the time, because it would be difficult learning japanese people to know.

I tried for many years to hold contact to penpals or to be friends - But Japanese don't have much freetime as it seems. One day they never answered again.

I can recommend the app enicee!

I traveled to Japan alone, yes it do suck you don't have anyone else to be with during your travel but you do see a lot and can do a lot of things you want to do. You will meet a lot of westerns while your in Japan you can randomly talk to. Most and all westerns living in japan will talk to people visiting japan and give you some great recommendation and if they are traveling, you can travel with them.

Trust me, i think its best for you to try not to make friends during your short stay.

@Name
It's interesting you still stick to fellow "westerners". There are more Asian tourists than westerners in Japan.