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I didn't bring family with me, I'm building one here. Re: neighbor acceptance, it's hit or miss but mostly hit. In my last apartment, my next-door neighbor was an older guy who spoke no English but always wanted to shoot the shit about my project cars. I think he used to be a bosozoku (young Japanese biker gangs) back in the day. My Japanese is pretty poor but I can express myself on certain subjects, especially cars. There's a guy at one of my favorite junkyards who keeps inviting me to go drifting with him and I barely understand his Japanese; he has a very heavy local accent. There was also a young guy who worked at my local Family Mart convenience store who was a metalhead (he was wearing a band T-shirt one day), so we would occasionally talk about bands. Him: "Do you know....Fleshgod?" "Fleshgod Apocalypse? mochiron sa (Eng: of course!) I saw them live in Osaka!" "Ahh, sugoii (cool) ! They are....very good! I like." \m/ >_< \m/

You'll always be "the gaijin" but most people are friendly. I had some good experiences in Thailand as well, having just the right physical features to kinda blend in as long as I didn't open my mouth. But that's a longer story...