SUB RULES

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20241101_06/

From the article, cyclists involved in accidents were distracted (interacting with or looking at their phone) in 126 out of 49000 cases (0.25%).

I wonder what percentage of cars hitting cyclists had the dashboard TV running? A lot more than 0.25% from what I see around town.

Hello, I purchased an Omron thermometer, and I wanted to know if I should add 0.5 degrees as we do in France after measuring temperature under the armpit.

Or is the indicated value the actual temperature?

In the manual, they do not mention whether we need to add 0.5 degrees, and it states that the indicated value after measurement is the actual temperature. Additionally, the manual only discusses measurement under the armpit.

Thank you for your help.

I mistakenly purchased JCB Premo instead of the Visa Gift Card in Lawson. I’ve checked the website and it says that I can use it to some convenience stores, but I tried to use it in Lawson and its not going through. Upon rechecking the website, it says that the “grey icon” is not supported, so basically I CANT use it on convenience stores, ne? Where exactly can I use this card? Or this is useless? 😩

Hi all. Can anyone explain to me? thanks :)

What “weird” Japanese foods did you grow to like? got obsessed with okra? eating miso soup for breakfast now? spill the (natto) beans!

I live in an older apartment (1985) and while it has a outdoor covered enclosure for laundry, it takes forever to dry. So what am I missing? I feel stupid haha

Hello, I’m in a bit of a predicament here trying to plan out the timing of my resignation and transfer to a new job.

From what I’ve been able to gather from various posts and information online, it’s best to quit on the last calendar day of the month and start work at the beginning of a month, due to national health insurance and pension charges covering the entire month, regardless of how many days you were actually not covered.

My problem is, I’m having a hard time trying to figure out the pros and cons of my resignation date (employment start time isn’t changing, January 1st). Quitting at the end of December (December 31st?) means not having to file for national health insurance and pension and also not having to file my own taxes. Quitting at the end of November means there will be a gap in December where I will have to sign up for national health insurance and pension, along with the hassle of filing my own taxes next year. Not really a deal breaker, though an extra month of salary would be highly appreciated considering move-in costs.

Now, the only reason why I’m even considering the end of November as the resignation date is I will be transferring prefectures (moving from a neighboring prefecture to Tokyo). The extra free time would help a lot, without revealing too much details I’m in the inaka, there’s no embassy just a city hall so for things like applying for change of visa will involve a little under 2 hour trip each time to a major city. I also plan to apply for the Big 3 bank account, apartment hunting, those things will involve me traveling to Tokyo.

Apart from apartment hunting, all the necessary procedures would involve having to take PTO, as none of them can be done over the weekend when thing are closed. I currently have roughly around 20 days of PTO saved, so if I were to quit at the end of December I’d sprinkle some PTO here and there whenever I have to and use the rest at the end.

Thoughts? Should I just quit end of November instead for the flexibility and time and just eat the cost of the national social premiums? I’m a bit worried about having to file my own taxes however, but am willing if I have to, just how difficult is it? Or should I quit end of December for the more smooth and streamlined process?

(As a side note, not close to start thinking about applying for PR if that matters)

Hello everyone. I ended my contract with a company on September (last working day was September 30th) and I thought I could move on with my life normally. The company was owing me around 20k yen including transportation and didn't pay me on the last 25th of October.

But not only that, I woke up today with a surprise delivery from said company demanding that I pay 31k yen for alledgely taxes and health insurance related expenditures, even though I don't work for them anymore.

I've never heard of anything like this before in any sort of japanese company. Is this even legal? Should I pursue legal action or I'm pretty much fucked? Would love to get some advice and see if anything similar ever happened with anyone before.

I likely made the foolish decision to update from AMEX green to platinum after receiving an upgrade invitation. I understand that platinum has their own concierge desk.

Is there an option speaking with someone in English? Or I should just keep using the global customer service number when I have an inquiry.

I like sleeping on the a mat on the floor, but I want a bed for aesthetics, would putting a thick drywall platform on a standard bed frame with wood slats achieve the same effect or does it defeat the purpose ?

Does anyone know how to turn my automatic license to manual car license? I know I can either go to a school start everything over again, I heard there is an option where I could just give a test at the center. I dont know where I would have to go to the main center for the test or could go the one near my area. Please let me know I might have missed something out as i have no idea

Hello~ I'm currently studying in Tokyo, and I'm looking for a place where I can do some basic bike maintenance. I'd like to swap out my pedals, add a bottle holder I bought, and maybe pump up my tires. Is there a public bike repair station or places with public tools in Tokyo that allows DIY repairs? I already bought the pedals and the bottle holder, so it would feel weird going to a bike shop to ask them to do such a simple task ^^

Does anyone have experience buying an used e bike from bike e-charity. Are they better than buying from hardoff or yahoo auctions? I am in isehara. Do they deliver to my home or can i pick it up at their location?

Now daily! Feel free to ask any silly stupid questions or not-so-silly stupid questions that you haven't had a chance to ask here. Be kind to those that do and try to answer without downvoting. Please keep criticism and snide remarks out of the thread.

I'm on a WHV expiring in a few months but I've been approved for the Startup Visa, will receive the recommendation letter from Shibuya City in December.

However, due to the UK/JP WHV agreement terms I am not allowed to request a change of status and will need to return to my country first, apply for the CoE, then the visa at my local embassy. This leaves perhaps 3 months out from Japan when I have no residence card or extension grace period.

Currently my rent goes out from Yuucho but I'm thinking of moving it to Sony Bank as I've read that many have had issues with this on the former even just renewing. In my case I'm not renewing, it'll expire and for 3 months or so no status until I can re-enter.

Any advice would be fantastic as rent payments being frozen would definitely be a big problem.

Hi all. Looking for online solutions to print trading card sized photos, also known as 2R (64x89mm)

Most places only print L size (127x89mm), roughly double the size I need. If I can't find a 2R printer, I guess I could print L and cut them in half...

Any ideas?

From Japanese immigrants i got mail. They didnt want 4000yen stamp ❌. Is it denied ? Do i need to prepare mentally?

One of my friend visited a restaurant and the staff spilled water on my friend’s phone. We left the place and after some time, the phone started to show issues (faceid and screen issues).

After calling the restaurant, initially they mentioned they would compensate but during follow up calls, they weren’t helpful and hung up.

It’s been almost 2 weeks now. We were thinking to visit the restaurants physically and discuss. Of course they might also deny the acquisition. What is the best way or official way to handle this situation?

I have my mail-in ballot filled out already, but I don’t know if it’s okay or not to drop it off at the embassy already? Do I need a stamp too?

My paidy has limit of 210,000 yen for apple purchases and i'm planning to buy 512gb variant of the 16 pro max which is 220,000 yen. Can i pay 10,000 through gift card/cash and use paidy for the rest?

Hello, I am looking for a Japanese bank to receive my salary and have a card to make online purchases with. I am on Working Holiday and due to various recommendations I opened an account at JP Bank, with the surprise of not being able to apply for a card because my stay in Japan is less than a year. I’m using Revolut now but some pages don’t accept this international bank cards, that’s why I need an specific Japanese card.

What I am looking for:

• Obviously I can have a card even if I am going to be in Japan for less than a year
• Open an account and app in English
• It should be free to open the account and maintain it, if possible
• Create an online account, if possible

Thank you!

Title explains the situation. I’ve been offered a role working as an independent contractor rather than an employee. The job itself is the same as my previous job so there is no conflict on the type of work.

Is this allowed?

I have some colleagues visiting from abroad that strictly eat only halal food but I don’t really know any halal restaurants other than indian or kebab places which Im guessing theyre not interested in so any recommendations?

Hello all,

For those who have experience hiring a lawyer to do the rikon choutei process, how much did you end up paying? Chotei is the divorce that gets signed by a judge, so it is recognized in all US states.

I met with one lawyer today who quoted me 400k yen (40万）, and I want to know if this is reasonable. I will be contacting one more lawyer to compare, but I would appreciate if people could share their experiences.

extra info:

• I am a japanese citizen
• spouse is foreign citizen
• married in US and registered in Japan
• no kids, no shared assets
• spouse lives abroad and will not come to japan, so lawyer will get power of attorney
• lawyer said itll take 3 months

Hi all, about to buy some land in the countryside down here in Kyushu and will be building a house. Currently shopping around for architects, so really early on in the whole process. Anyone who's built a house before have any advice? Best friend said his biggest regret was not installing an American style oven, so wondering what y'all's experiences were.

Big advice, boring advice, nitpicky stuff, all is welcome. Have at me.

Also, it has farmland attached to it, so I’ll have to go to the city officials and explain what kind of stuff I plan to grow there.

Thanks!

Edit: thanks everyone for all the wonderful advice! I’ll make a few posts over the next year as things progress. Excited for the future!

I'm finding this really difficult. I need to enter evidence of birth information, either birth certificate (受理証明書（出生届書)) or family register (戸籍謄本). This is required to apply for Australian citizenship by birth for my daughter (with the idea of getting a passport and details later). We plan to visit Australia and having this makes it a lot easier to do so. This should be relatively simple....but the online application has a specific field for a reference number. But....neither of my documents (birth certificate or family register) has a number! Even when we went to the ward office the clerk simply said to us "oh, they don't have a reference number".

Anyone come across this issue before, how was it resolved? Can you enter all 0s or something similar? Or is there another way for us to get a document with a number?

Our apartment complex has been bought by a new company and this week we got news they would like us to move out 'soonish' (ideally by next January, February) and want to tear down the building by March and build new family homes.

We had another talk today that a 立ち退き料 (compensation for eviction) would not apply since the reason for them asking us to leave is 'deterioration'. The agent also mentioned they would help us out with fees for the new place once we present them with some estimates. They also mentioned they are a 'white kigyou'.

They also said if we choose to not move out and stay for 1 or 2 more years it wouldn't be a problem since we still pay our rent (lol?) and they would profit even in such a case. However in case of a natural disaster they would not be liable in any way.

We have not received an eviction notice, but a simple letter stating the above reason 'deterioration' and 'asking' us to leave at this stage.

After initial consulting some Japanese lawyer websites, it seems even with the reason being 'detoriation' we would be eligible for the normal compensation such as moving costs and first 6 months of rent paid at our next place. I would be hesitant to move for less.

My bullshit sensors went off a bit, but since this is the first time this happened to me I'd like to ask the community on their opinion.

My current strategy would be to provide them with some estimates such as moving costs, new place rent and then ask for full compensation regarding any moving costs, reikin, etc. and 3-6 months rent for the new place. Is this reasonable?

In case they would play hardball I'd simply tell them we can't move on such short notice due to the financial burden. I'm not convinced they would really let us live here for a prolonged time since this would put their plans for the new family home back by a lot and would cost more in future earnings than our movings costs.

Has anyone successfully moved from the countryside to a big city and become happier?

Most comments I see are from people working remotely in IT who can afford to live anywhere. While I'm not planning to move immediately, I'm looking ahead at the possibility of relocating for better career opportunities.

For context: I joined an automotive industry-adjacent company six months ago in a position that requires fluent Japanese (which I have). However, I already feel limited in my growth potential here, in term of career opportunity and skill growth. Even if I develop my technical skills further, it's not what the company values or prioritizes. There's hardly any social life outside work, and it's not easy to go anywhere.

A coworker I'm close to recently had an immediate family member pass away. I'm thinking of giving him some homemade baked goods, but wasn't sure if it would be appropriate/appreciated. Is it weird to gift people homemade food here?

I worked for the same US-based medical company for around 10 years before moving here to Japan. They said they would continue working with me on a contractor basis, but of course that got too difficult for them as they were always terrible at planning animation project schedules into their product launch planning. Anyways, I’ve been looking for a similar arrangement working remotely for a US-based company as either a contractor or through a PEO and wanted to hear from anyone else who is successfully doing that. How did you convince the company to work with you? How did you even get through the application process barrier (my location alone seems to be triggering auto-rejections)? Did you know someone at the company beforehand, or do you have any secrets you’d be willing to divulge? Thanks in advance for any advice.

Added details: I’ve also applied to Japanese companies, but my Japanese language skills are still very low. I’m taking classes, but the need to find a job is more urgent than the speed at which my language skills are improving.