Ok, where to begin...
You want to go visit a new country (Japan in this case), but you don't have a lot of money. Are you a hard worker? Are you open to getting a real experience of native culture and lifestyle? Then check out WWOOF Japan! World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms is a program that is basically self-explanatory, it provides travelers with a network of local farmers wanting to live organically and/or self-sustaining. How it works is that you pay a small yearly fee to become a WWOOFer (something like $63 USD if I remember correctly), then you have full access to their site where you can locate a family based on where in Japan you'd like to be and what type of work you'd like to be doing. Then you simply send them a message saying that you'd like to come be a part of their community on whatever date and they'll respond to let you know if they'll have room for you or not (sometimes if they're already hosting a WWOOFer they may not have room for 2, or 3, or whatever).
From my experience, the family I stayed with was actually renting out a second house in a different part of the village we were in (Sasayama, Hyogo Prefecture) so they could house more WWOOFers. They were hosting about 10-12 of us in all, a few from America, a few from England, and a few from other parts of Japan. It was a great experience, a lot of hard work but a great learning experience and it's beautiful countryside, really amazing.
So check out there website for more info. And if you're interested in WWOOFing in other parts of the world, good news, you can! You can WWOOF in many countries, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, pretty much anywhere in Europe and North America, The Philippines, Taiwan, Uganda, and many more!
The photo below was the view out of our bedroom window, pretty amazing!
