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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 6th, 2023

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  • Just chiming in, I’m 28, American, immigrated to Germany. Can’t speak for Lemmy but I migrated from reddit when they shut the APIs down. Just want a shelf stable Aggregate site where I can stay up to date on my favorite hobbies and periodically connect with other humans. A healthy political debate is good every now and then but I’m also in the camp that the answers for our current problems are well researched and pretty fuckin obvious so debates have gotten… Idk stale.

    Generally Lemmy feels like reddit but smaller, less polluted, but also less connected with every niche major update.






  • Ya, seriously, their take is crazy. I’m a two income household, both software engineers, and to save enough money to afford the loan to buy the home would take us years. The cost of a mortgage right now is higher than my rent by a huge percentage and that still requires 20-30k of down payment.

    Could we downsize to a 1 bedroom apartment, eat PBJs every night, and stick to cheap hobbies such that we could afford to start the loan in two years or something - yes. But why am I required to trade my youth for the ability to pay the bank the better part of a million dollars over the next 20 years of my life just so I can install a nice bathroom and AC and maintain the flat properly.


  • You are forming your opinion on a statistical anomaly worth of experiences. The reality is rent is priced fixed by very few algorithms - all of which by their nature drive the prices higher every year.

    You are renting to people who choose to rent, the vast majority don’t get to choose. And even if they choose to rent, that’s because owning is too expensive in their eyes (money or time or paperwork or otherwise) - it does not mean they wouldn’t want to own if the cost was lower.

    I can’t imagine anyone declining reduced costs unless phrased poorly or out of guilt.


  • My last Japan trip was 4 or 5 years back and spent time in multiple big cities with an express train pass. I think I budgeted a grand for the flight, a grand in food and hotel and spending a week. But with inflation being what it is I’d want to rerun the numbers based off of what flights and hotel/hostels I could find and assume 1k for just food and fun per week. I think there are active data sheets online that talk about the average cost of eating out in Japan right now.

    You want to visit for “a few weeks” so I’d say plan for 2k + flight + hotel/hostel + train tickets/pass. I’d bet you spend less than 4k total for that time.

    I like to visit 1 major city every 4-7 days, I normally do travel in, 5 days, travel out. So two weeks would let me see 2 major cities and a couple day trips or 3 shorter stays at 3 major places. Some cities are cheaper than others which is something to consider and how you eat out also dictates your budget more than anything. You could eat in Tokyo for dollars a day at gas stations or you could splurge on sashimi every night and find yourself burning money by the fist full.

    I’m a big foodie so that’s where the 1k per week comes from.








  • Hey, this is an exciting first step in planning your trip. I’m 27 and have traveled a lot on my own and with friends, if you need any advice or have any questions feel free to PM me.

    1. Get your passport - this let’s you leave your country and enter others. Depending on your country you may need to get a visa but assuming you come from the US you don’t need a Visa (if a passport let’s you enter into your native country, a Visa let’s you enter and stay in a foreign country under certain conditions).
    2. Book a flight through something like Google flights, no need to go through any company besides the airline’s.
    3. Book housing - if you’re going alone and packing light I would highly recommend a hostel. Hostels are shared rooms where you sleep in the same room, share bathrooms, etc. If you’re a light sleeper you may not like this, it will cause you to interact with other tourists which can be a pro or a con, and when you leave stuff in your room It’ll need a lock (no issues in my experience but I also wouldn’t bring 2 grand of electronics and lock them in the room). The main benefit is it’s cheaper for individuals. Eastern hostel culture is way better than western, and Japan has some of the best in my experience.
    4. Pack your stuff. You need clothes, but you can do laundry there if that interests you so you don’t need too many clothes. You need a way to get japanese currency. My card let’s me pull money out of international ATMs, you can also bring US dollars and convert it there in the airport, but Japan mostly takes card in my experience.

    That’s the bare necessity. I got to stop now but like I said, I’d love to help past that.

    Depending on where you’re going transportation can be handled entirely by public transit. Don’t get a car.