Ballarat or Japan?

Seems like an easy choice, but I'm seriously contemplating detonating my life by moving to either for a year. And then on the other hand, I love what Melbourne has going on culturally and the opportunities it presents, it just seems action packed to the brim of shit you can do. Balifornia is only an hour's train ride away though and when I ran around it on Sunday (almost literally) it had views, hills, Mt Buninyong, a big reflective lake, Gold Rush era architecture. One things for sure, living in Ballarat certainly beats the shit out of living in outer suburbs. To paraphrase my friend: I could be a big fish in a shot-glass in Ballarat.

Conversely I never did actually live in Japan, as much as the country feels like home, as much as I feel my host families are just family to me, I never actually lived there. I remember walking down happiness street in Shizuoka and thinking it was Japan's answer to Sydney road. I could live in Shizuoka, I could live in Nagoya, I could live I think in Osaka for a year at least. When I return there this year I might sus it out. The real catch is whether I would push myself out of the artistic scene and opportunities by relocating to Japan.

I don't want to spend a year not growing.