Anyone living in Japan ?

[MamanFlo]

Hello mums from all over the world
we are now planned to move to Tokyo by the end of the year
We have a girl who is two years old, and by then we will be the proud parents of a new born baby (november).
I am looking for friends alreay and anything that could help : tips on schools, how to entertain children, way of life... We've been in Tokyo last summer for our honeymoon si we have some idea of how life is there, but I'd like to know more and possibly make some new friends.

thanks !

flo from paris

oh how exciting! I lived in Japan a looooong time age ( well in the mid 90s before children) and loved it.
what an experience it will be

Yessss
that's what we have in mind : the great experience, eating sushis everyday and getting to know more of the country... but I am afraid with children it might change everything ... anyhow the desire of living there was so powerful

where did you live ? where you working there ?

I lived in Shizuoka, not far from Tokyo ( on the shinkansen I mean) I was single and making lots of money for what I was doing ( teaching English in a highschool) travelled all over the country
there must be other message boards out there for expat mums/families living in Japan??

that's what I am looking for at the moment, but I must admit that I have a special thing fo mumsnet

did you learn japanese down there ? or did you know about japanese already ?

didn't know much about Japan at all
my Japanese at the end of it was mostly conversational, ordering food, that sort of thing. mostly gone now dh is still pretty good though (met him there)

i lived in tokyo for 5 years when my family moved there. my dad's japanese so it was easy for him but the rest of us grew up abroad and found it hard to adjust, esp my mum who didn't speak the lingo. it sounds as though your children will be old enough to attend hoikuen(day care) which might be a good option if it is a long term thing. it'll help the kids with the language thing and ease them into the lifestyle. my mum found that if you get to know a few of the local foreigners there uaually is more info as to what's available in the area. it's not a hard language to learn to speak. most of the time pointing gets the job done and most people are happy to help if you want to try out what you've learnt.

This is the only site I know of for ex-pats (although there's another for foreigners who are married to Japanese people,) www.tokyowithkids.com/

It's not just for people in Tokyo, but for people all over Japan. Most of them are Americans I think, but that's only to be expected

Good luck!

Hi MamanFlo
I live in Japan.
I'm not in Tokyo though, I live in a city called Okazaki which is just south of Nagoya City in Aichi prefecture. It's about half way between Tokyo and Osaka on the pacific coast. (Ok enough geography!! )

I came over on a 1 year contract to teach English. That was almost 8 years ago now and since then I've ended up getting married and having my DD.

Will you actually be moving to Tokyo itself?
What plans do you have so far?