I think the key is to stay out of Tokyo. I never lived there--I lived in Kyoto and in Nagoya. Also, I first went to Japan in 1976, and it was a different place. I never lived in an apt. with hot running water, or a bath. One apt, I couldn't even get a fridge into (stairs too steep, ceiling too low), so I lived without for nearly three years. The first place I lived (a house in Kyoto) didn't have a flush toilet.

I spent two weeks walking the Nakasendo (the inland road from Tokyo to Kyoto), and that certainly gave me a taste of true isolation.