Japanese high school lifestyle etc?

hi. I'm being sent to tsuruoka japan in yamagata pref. this summer for about a month. I heard from a bunch of japanese ppl that that its apparently a dead town. does anyone know a cheap way to get to tokyo or osaka from haguro highschool or tsuruoka? Gmaps didn't tell me squat.

Anyways while I'm in haguro what is there exactly to do there? I heard about two beaches there and thats about it.

How are the people there?

Is there any nightlife in tsuruoka?

how hard is it to get from haguro to tsuruoka

and f you have any info on haguro/tsuruoka i'd love to hear it.Japanese high school lifestyle etc?
%26gt; People

Old people in Yamagata speak in an ultra strong accent, which is hard for me to understand. That will force you to learn the language there from zero.



%26gt; Night life

They usually close shops at 7 pm and play "shogi" (Japanese chess) because there is a famous Japanese Chess Pieces manufacturing district (Tendo) near the city.



Young people, if any, and "wild animals" go to Sakata for night life.



%26gt; Ski

If you like going skiing, you can go to Gassan until the end of June.



%26gt; Sake

When you feel alone there in Tsuruoka, drink Sake.



%26gt; Transportation

You should buy a K-car, snowmobile or chopper.
Tsuruoka is a small town which is distant from Tokyo. It's more far away from Osaka. Do not expect any "cheap" or even fast (but expensive) transportation to Tokyo.



It takes at least 5 hours to get from Tsuruoka to Tokyo. More to Osaka.



Another answer says it has Shinkansen station. But it does not in fact. Shinkansen does not come to Tsuruoka station. It's for other normal trains.



%26gt;Anyways while I'm in haguro what is there exactly to do there?



There is little to do there. We can watch TV. But you would not understand Japanese TVs.



%26gt;Is there any nightlife in tsuruoka?



Very little.



%26gt;how hard is it to get from haguro to tsuruoka



Haguro is a part of Tsuruoka.Japanese high school lifestyle etc?
Apparently there is a stop there for the Shinkansen (or Bullet Train). That might be a viable option.Japanese high school lifestyle etc?
Let's get things straight.



You're going to be living in the countryside.



Tokyo will be a major outing for you. If you're living up in Tsuruoka, your best bet for a major city will be Sendai, which will take time to get to.



However, I can understand wanting to go to Tokyo because there's no city like it, and Sendai is only a fraction of the size of Tokyo.



If you want to go to Osaka, you'll be taking a vacation. It's hardly a place you can just hop on a train and get to easily.



If you haven't studied Japanese, you might want to start. At least you can get down the two "alphabets" hiragana and katakana. Just knowing those will help you out quite a bit.



What do you do in Haguro? See when you get there. No doubt people will be happy to see a foreigner. They'll be excited that someone has come from so far away to live in their town for awhile. I'm sure you'll have plenty of chances to hang out. People will show you around if you're willing.



I'm not sure what you mean by nightlife for highschool students. Almost everywhere in Japan there's karaoke, so you'll probably be doing that.



Japanese don't do the nightclub thing. Those places exists, but only in major cities, and they're frequented by half the gaijin (foreign) population, so they're not very indicative of life in Japan. Like if you're out to meet girls, you'll only meet a certain type of girl at those places (the ones obsessed with foreigners).



Keep searching on the interweb for more info. regarding that area. Search in Japanese if you can.