I went to Japan for 9 months after graduating High School back in 2001 paid for by the Tokyo Dome "Big Egg" Corporation because an executive wanted more people from New Zealand because he really enjoyed his time here. Unfortunately my Japanese never developed properly due to the lack of reference materials that are Japanese/English which meant I couldn't make any reasonable progress. Complete language immersion works amazingly well when you are 5 years old, but it isn't something you can do when you're 18 and you have to literally base everything you do on guess work. While I can't watch Anime without subtitles, I can pick up divergences between what is actually said and the translation. It doesn't sound like gibberish, it's all very familiar, but everything feels only just out of reach. If I ever have another chance with a slightly modified teaching regiment and reference materials, I know it will all fall into place very quickly.
Big Egg paid for everything besides airfare. They gave you a job at Karakuen Uenchi which at the time was been rebuilt, so I missed out on half the rides. Housing, transport, healthcare, spending money(On top of the job), schooling, basic utilities. Shouted us a trip to Disney Sea, a trip to a water park and a candle light Jazz dinner on top of Tokyo Dome Hotel. That Beef medallion for main course was so good, to this day, I have effectively refused to eat any other beef steak simply because no beef steak will ever measure up to that one meal ever again.
If you know where to look, there is a photo of me on NWR/PGC.
Another Japanese Food TV holy **** moment was when they took an X-ray of one of those skinny big eaters washed down with a Barium Milk Shake. His stomach had expanded as if it had no limits other than how far it could push every other organ out of the way.