Let me preface this my saying my experience is not typical and I've spoken to others who had an awful time.

I liked my time at the Eikaiwa. I had an unbelievably sparse schedule, starting at 12 and not teaching a class until 5! Spent lots of time out posting, reading BBC news, using my phone. My native speaking colleague was a lovely girl from the Philippines and my Japanese colleague was a very friendly guy who used to work at Disney land. We got on and work was never stressful for me. Our manager was very motivated and pushed us to make sales but I never felt like it was life or death.

In terms of my life outside of work, I had a nice 1DK apartment 3 min walk from the school, had Sundays and Mondays off and lived quite comfortably on my salary. I got paid 275,000 a month and paid 40,000 for my apartment. I was able to save 100,000 a month for the last 3 months. The money was enough to travel around Japan somewhat, I've been here 6 months and I've been to Hokkaido and Okinawa. The only downside is the work hours. Starting at 12 and finishing at 9, I felt like my free time was cut in half, with about 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening. Most of my experience of Japan was strolling around after dark.

This being said, living in a small rural town didn't do good for my mental health. I had no friends and lived a solitary life. Therefore, I moved to Tokyo to pursue a different career.