Alternate to varchar2

[Arul]

Hi All

I am trying to port my oracle Databse to mysql.
I am using 3.23.49 version of mysql.

i had certain columns in oracle which had varchar2(900)

But in mysql varchar doesnt support more than 255

so what could be the alternate in this case..

Can i use Blob or text..But again if i use blob and if i use a like
condition in my query , it would be a performance problem.

Could anyone suggest a solution for this

Regards,
-Arul