Living in Osaka

I'm looking to move to Osaka Japan to teach english.  I have been to Japan before but never Osaka so I am trying to find out more about the neighborhoods throughout the city.  I am young and looking to live in a vibrant neighborhood.  Music and nightlife are big for me, but culture is also immensely important.  I would like a location with a balance of both.  If you have a good knowledge of the neighborhood distinctions could you please break them down for me.  Thank you for your time and assistance.

Good morning,



I am a cross-cultural trainer living in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA who will be working with a couple who is moving to the Osaka area.  We will be meeting on Monday and Tuesday, Nov 23 and 24 – Eastern Time zone. 



During out time together I would like to speak to an American woman who is currently living in the Osaka area.  This is a casual 1.5 hour phone conversation, for which there is compensation, about life in Osaka.  Quite often this is the most important part of the training.  This couple has never been to Japan and will be on their preview trip in early January. 



Could you help in finding someone to help in this couple's successful transition into the exciting life in Osaka?  I am happy to provide further information about me, the transferee and wife and provide topics of discussion. 



Thank you very much for your help,

Regards,

Kay Beverley

Berlitz Certified Training Professional

704-847-5773

Hola, soy mexicano viviendo en los Estados Unidos, soy Diseñador Gráfico y he considerado por años mudarme a Osaka o Kyoto, me gusta muchisisimo el arte Japonés, especialmente en el área de Diseño por obvias razones, si hay alguien quien me pueda guiar en cómo se vive en Japón siendo mexicano, cómo son las comunidades mexicanas alla, cómo se vive y todas las preguntas que puedan venir con eso.

Les agradezco mucho.

Eduardo.

Have been living in Osaka area for almost four years, hope that my experience will be of some help to the future expats.
Finding a job might be a tricky thing for those who are not natives of English spoken countries(like myself). Since the easiest way to earn the living is to teach English, whether by joining a big chain of schools (Nova, Geos, Berlitz, etc)or by giving private lessons and helping out part-time in a smaller scale English school. If you are a "native", then finding a job won't be too difficult, finding a job that is satisfying and exciting might be some of a challenge. For the latter you will have to first make friends with the local people and learn some Japanese in order to promote your classes and enlarge the circle of the potential students. The funny thing is that even if you do speak the language and understend it more than most of the "natives" do, you will still not be able to get a contract with the big companies, my own experience is a proof to that. I have scored 99.4% on the TEFL test (without even opening the text book, which pissed my Japanese friends royally), which is about 25% above the average of the score of the most of the teachers.
Settling down wont be too easy, since most of the real-estate companies do not trust the foreigners, like in any other country I suppose. For the first year you might want to hang onto one of the flats they rent out for teachers, that means you will have to share a room with somebody.
Once you will be able to move out and live on your own, I recommend move away from the city and find a nice flat near one of the stations along the train line that runs between Oosaka and Kobe. Nishinomia is one of the best places with plenty of foreigners living and working there, good restaurants and pubs (especially in the Koshien-guchi station area), fairly cheap appartments and clean, safe atmosphere that Oosaka fails to provide. A 20 minute ride on the train can take you whether to Oosaka center or Kobe, third biggest city in the Kansai area, if I am not mistaken.
Just stumbled upon this forum and wanted to share my experience, feel free to ask questions concerning Oosaka, since I will be checking out this thread every once in a while.

Hi~ I saw this article while roaming through expat-blog, and thought I'd offer my two cents:) I've recently relocated to Osaka with my husband (who is Japanese, so my experience might vary from others significantly, sorry =/), so these are just my first impressions. Hopefully someone may find them helpful~

Also, @DCosaka, I'm from D.C. too! I lived there while in college and was raised 20min outside of D.C. in Maryland =]

Anyway, directly from the states looking to get into English teaching is quite difficult. Most of the time, if you're being interviewed from overseas, they want to place you in rural cities because a.) no one who's already in Japan (in big cities) wants to move out there and b.) people coming from overseas generally don't have much of a choice. Also, I noticed on a lot of job postings that a lot of schools require some kind of certification like CELTA. This is probably a big result of all the chain English schools that have gone bankrupt:( (NOVA, GEOS)

Also, in terms of how Osaka is set up, there is Osaka the city, then Osaka the prefecture (more like a semi-prefecture maybe, it uses the kanji 府 instead of 県). So if you're talking about staying in Osaka, you might need to specify Osaka City if you mean near areas like Namba, Shinsaibashi or Umeda.

For apartment hunting, there are quite a few shops in Osaka City that cater to foreigners with English-speaking agents. The one shop I actually went to didn't even try to speak English to me, so I'm really not so sure about that claim:/

I ended up going to a regular shop (like Apaman Shop or Homemate) with my husband and just doing it traditionally. When we got our apartment paperwork though, we were required to have a co-signer and show proof of work and being able to afford the apartment. I'm gonna assume it's the same when they deal with strictly foreign customers since I have two friends from France looking for a place, but they need proof of a job first (they're on working holiday visas). And usually your company will act as your guarantor (co-signer).

If you end up getting a foreigner apartment (which I would recommend if you only intend on staying for 1 year or so), it'll probably be furnished or partially furnished (bed, fridge, tv, maybe internet). If you just want to get a regular apartment, then you may need to buy things like a refrigerator, stove top, microwave, tv, bed, couch, curtains, etc. A lot of money~

Let's not forget key money, and that can go up to 2K easy. But it varies greatly because sometimes you don't have to pay at all.

The busiest areas of Osaka are probably Namba, Shinsaibashi (America-Mura), and Umeda. That's where all the clubs, bars, and shops are located. This part of Osaka is mostly Naniwa, Nishi, Tennoji, Kita or Chuo Wards. If you stay in any of these wards, it's more likely you'll be able to get to the downtown area easily by bike or on foot. But since most of the clubs run from 11pm to 5am, you could easily catch the train out to the 'burbs afterwards:)

As for me, I usually walk (or bike) home from a night of clubbing, and I've done so several times feeling totally safe. Though I've stopped recently since it's so cold =] I don't know if coming from D.C. gives me the impression that Osaka is completely safe though... You should always be careful though.

Umm.. that's just some basic info I could get off the top of my head, so I'm sorry if it seems a little confusing:| If you'd like to know anything more, I'll try to answer =]

Cheers~