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Summary: Yamasa is located virtually in the very center of Japan. Okazaki provides a low cost location, perfect for
both study and travel, with a strong local economy supporting employment prospects for international students and
underpinning the research base of the region's universities and Institutes.
As you can see by the map at right, this historic city is ideally placed to enable you to easily visit ALL of the most famous places in Japan. It is located halfway between Tokyo and Osaka (convenient to both), halfway between Shizuoka and Kyoto.
Yamasa's Locational Advantages: (1) Low-cost rent, larger amount of space (2) Zero commuting costs (3) Lower food/living costs (4) Higher real income from part-time work (5) Easier to find part-time work (6) Easier to gain university entrance (7) No congestion (8) Perfect base for travel (9) Strong local culture/festivals (10) Standard dialect.
None of these advantages are accidental. Okazaki is not only in the center of Japan, but the center of the ultra strategic Mikawa region. Every major arterial route - whether it be the ancient Tokaido Road, the modern Route 1, Tokaido Bullet train route, Tomei Expressway, or the new fiber-optic backbone passes right through here. Every army in Japanese history has had to defeat, co-opt, negotiate with or yield to the rulers of the Mikawa. Every messenger travelling between the Imperial capital of Kyoto and the military headquarters of the Shoguns stayed here. Even now Route 1 passes just meters from the Okazaki castle gates. It goes without saying, that as a key communications center, linguistic changes have usually been first felt here or derived from here. Many of the key changes in the Tokyo/Standard dialect, emerged from the inevitable linguistic influence of the Tokugawa Shoguns and their vassals - the Tokugawa clan, their sub-families and feudal retainers - the iron fisted rulers of the Mikawa and then Japan for the two and a half centuries of Japan's most recent isolation. Technology, design, and creative industries have always flourished here. Whether it be Seto pottery, Mikawa gunpowder, the famous/infamous Mitsubishi Zero-sen fighter planes, Toyota motor vehicles, robotics or software - the region remains one of the world's key manufacturing, design, transport and distribution centers.