This sounds oddly familiar to me, I worked in Japan for a year and a half despite taking a large paycut from my job back in the US because I wanted to explore something new. I ultimately left to Silicon Valley ironically because they were offering nearly 4x the pay and better learning opportunities (the Japanese compensation structure is not kind to new grads and SV has ridiculous COL). However I loved my time in Japan and my ultimate career goal is to somehow move back there but with a better opportunity. Good to see some people finding gainful employment over there, it really is a great place to live.