Budget for moving to japan?

Hey everyone if I could have some advice that would be great!

Im looking to move to japan in the start of next year. Ive tought English in Hong Kong for 2.5 years and am doing my CELTA before I leave for japan now in Sydney Australia.

A few friends I knew in HK said they worked for Gaba, and Peppys kids club. Can an english teacher out there give me advice, and maybe the pros and cons for working with big companys vs small ones.

In a perfect world id love to get a working holiday visa, travel japan for a few weeks or few mopnths and get a feel for the country and then hopefully travel back to an area I liked the most and start looking for potential jobs?

Does this seem possible or is work quite hard to find and am I better off just going somewhere that a company stations me????

Also....HOW MUCH $ SHOULD I BUDGET???????
For say apartment, accomodation before hand etc basic expences to set my self up in a large city in japan.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Cheers, Adam

Hi there Adam,

well, the same questions come up every day. If you search a little on this site you should find quite some information already. Despite that, let me make a couple of comments:

* A few friends I knew in HK said they worked for Gaba, and Peppys kids club. Can an english teacher out there give me advice, and maybe the pros and cons for working with big companys vs small ones.*

Well, working for one of those big companies has definitely it's advantages. The job is more or less secure, they give you lots of assistance in finding an apartment and so on, the salary is (almost) the same with most of them (around Yen 250.000).

Another option would be going thru the so-called JET program. Just google or Yahoo for it, there is an official Japanese Government homepage on the net.

* In a perfect world id love to get a working holiday visa, travel japan for a few weeks or few mopnths and get a feel for the country and then hopefully travel back to an area I liked the most and start looking for potential jobs? *

If I'm not all wrong it wouldn't work like that. Nothing is perfect. You only get your working visa if you have an employer, and the respective employer decides where you will go. Maybe you should come over here as a "normal" tourist, check out the area, go to language schools in person and ask them if they can provide you with a job.


* Also....HOW MUCH $ SHOULD I BUDGET???????
For say apartment, accomodation before hand etc basic expences to set my self up in a large city in japan. *

A large city is always more expensive than countryside! Also the competition is more stiff in reference finding a job. Tokyo apartments (1 room) can run something like 80.000 to 100.000. Of course if you are looking for the action, i.e. lots of entertainment, Tokyo, Osaka and alike are the cities to go for.

Hope this helps you a little. I am sure there will be more comments.

PS: here is the URL for JET (at least one of them): http://www.jetprogramme.org/

''If I'm not all wrong it wouldn't work like that. Nothing is perfect. You only get your working visa if you have an employer, and the respective employer decides where you will go.''

Kula, what you are describing is the process for the working visa, whereas Adam is talking about coming to Japan on a working holiday visa, meaning he would already have a visa that allows him to work on arriving in japan.

Adam, what you described is quite possible, as long as you have the funds to support yourself during that travel and then the job-hunting process. It would take at least a few weeks to find and start a job, if not several months, and in Japan you get paid late the following month for each month's work, meaning you might be waiting a long time to see a paycheque.

For people arriving with a job that they will be starting straight away, at least a couple of thousand AUD in start-up costs is the usual recommendation, and if you want to travel and then start the job hunt, you will need a lot more.