Japan, Small city (~100k ppl) called Osaki, ~ 40km up north of Sendai, Tohoku region. Around 300km up north from Tokio. There are few major disadvantages in living in such place, I'll discus them in other boxes.

Listing few positive facts:
+ its close to the work, ~10min by foot (~700m).
+ It might be possible to get a bike from the company. Bike is advantageous, coz the city is very flat so you can get anywhere with ease
+ its not far to supermarkets, its quiet (except for the shinkanzen :D ) and probably very safe place
+ while the city itself is not interesting, it takes about 8min to get to Sendai by shinkansen, or around 40min by bus. Sendai is big city with lot of stuff to do, just be aware that cost of the shinkansen is quite high, so you probably wont go there frequently if you want to spare money for bigger trips. But in theory you can :)

Name of the city is Osaki, however some of the subregions (city parts?) are called Furukawa, which creates bit of confusion. The train station is called Furukawa station, link for it here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/FjEy61ZTsTn5Kd4D8

Again, the city is small, with not much to do. This is probably the biggest downfall of this location, that it is not in Tokio. Dont expect to meet many people speaking english. People are nice, will help you if they can, but its hard to socialise in such place. I've not seen many people my age, they likely all moved to bigger cities.

Still, there are shops, both food and stationery, there are good restaurants if you want, and there was a festival happening at one point during August, probs "Osaki festival" or smth like that. Fireworks, people dressed in yukatas... it got bit crowded that night.

There is an onsen (hot spring spa) location west accesible by train line. There are interesting places around, however you need to get to Sendai. Osaki itself is flat, there is a dam up north, where you can get by foot, but honestly not so much there to see. There is an abandoned fun park there, but I could not acces it at the time as there was a bike race going and lot of police around. Maybe you will be more lucky. It should be accesible (it was around 2y ago), just dont get spotted i guess :).

Alps Alpine, big international company working in many electronics branches. It is an corporate, so there are lot of corporate-ish rules and stuff. But as an intern it's ok, you mainly focus on your given task.

There is obviously an NDA, so I'm just going to say that I worked with FMCW radar, as radar technology is one of the branches company specializes with.

The task given was honestly more then I could achieve, it required a lot of research and was quite challenging. So my progress was slow and I managed to achieve only part of what we thought I would achieve in the beginning. However this was not a problem, the seemed happy with my progress and agreed that the task was challenging.

So while I felt a bit like I'm underachieving their expectations during my work, it was fun and I learned a lot.

I had allowance of 80k yen/month. It was given to me in advance for each month in cash, which is nice as I did not have to take out money from ATMs and could use this directly.

You can in theory survive on 40k yen/month, assuming you spent only optimally, so 80k is enough to live, assuming we talk about food and basic necessities. I had some money to spare at that time so I did not count precisely.

To travel Japan, you need much more, as the shinkanzen, or Railpass for shinkanzen are quite expensive.

One point could be made, that even as an intern, the work I did was quite qualified and should be maybe rewarded with higher salary. I believe entry level engineer makes at least 4x the money i got. On the other hand, acomodation & plane ticket were paid for by the company, so if we sum those, the allowance is not terrible.

Also 80k seems to be number set by iaseste, not by the company. I'm not sure how it works tho.

English is your only option as you probably dont speak Japanese. However almost no one speaks English. While in the work people did speak English, the communication was rather limited.

Honestly your best bet is a google translate or similar with voice translation. It helps clarify things in work, and is basically a necessity anywhere else, as shop keepers dont speak English.

Provided by the company.

This seems to be different from last year, however there was basically no equipment, furniture etc at the apartment. You get an AC, stove, fridge, shower, washing machine etc.. however basically no wardrobe, rather funky pillow, you sleep on the floor (mattress is given to you). No table, no chair, cleaing supplies (broom...)... And no cooking equipment etc. There was internet luckily.

Also the drying fan in my shower did not really work, so it was kinda tricky to dry stuff like shoes.

I did talk about this with the company, they seemed surprised and told me that no one has complained before. Apparently they chose different style of apartment from last year and this was one of the differences.

Sadly I was not able to achieve any sensible resolution and we had to buy cleaning supplies ourselves, and for my personal work, I just stayed at the company or went to the library for a table.

We got picked up in Tokio by a IAESTE girl who took us to the employer. That was nice.
We also took part in one of the events, it was a trip somewhere north of Tokio and a pizza night afterwards. That was quite nice.

The recuring problem is, that Osaki is far north, where basically no one from iaeste or other students is. And the expense of going to Tokio and back is significant if you plan to do so regularly. So.. lonely times.

Again, in Tokio it was easy thanks to IAESTE event. In Osaki its basically impossible.

There are gyms around, you can go for hikes...

Japanese cuisine is good, at times quite approachable (ramen, soba, sushi..) at times quite weird (i skipped those). It might be cheaper to eat in restaurants rather that to cook just for yourself, idk, however expiring fish and microwave heated rice (no rice cooker at apartment) make for a great and cheap sushi.

Yes all the apps work. I bought a internet only sim card at the airport, i thing it was 15gb for 2months. Its bit tricky to find something long term, if you do not wish to use calls etc, as it gets expensive. However the deal I found was probably more worth that data plans in CZ.

Idk japan is nice, it is bit lonely there up north.

Also there is lot of work to do, 8 to 17, just don't expect to have a lot of free time.

Hiking stuff. Hikes are like actually hikes - rain forest feeling, steep, sliplery rocks.. Exciting, but be prepared for some rough conditions.

Most importantly - don't bring too much stuff with you. You will need the space in your bag for all the stuff you buy there. Stationery, clothes, random cute useless stuff...

I learned a lot, japan is nice place to visit. In summer you get Obon holidays, its just crowded everywhere.

They helped us clarify things, the event was nice.