This is more of a vent I guess since I’m not really looking for advice. Although if you want to chime in with own experiences I’m all ears… or text, lulz.

Just came back to Japan after a holiday in my own home country. I have lived here for about ten years. There’s been ups and downs ofc but I always ended up staying.

Went back to my home country for two weeks and oh boy, this time, I had so much fun. I made new contacts, I make and design jewelry and was able to strike a deal with a jewelry maker, I invested in a start-up company, I was involved in a live event, I had a great time with my family and it just felt like “this is where I should be”. Never felt like that before when coming back home.

Many of the things I did, I feel like I can’t really do here. Whilst I do speak Japanese I have never even been close to being able to invest in a start up company or to be part of a live event (help organizing). Just made me realize how sick I am of “the Japanese way” of doing things.

My girlfriend (future wife) lives here and she is Japanese so ofc I’m happy to be back and meet her and it is nice to be in Japan (I do like it here) but I don’t know if it’s enough this time.

I think the main thing that sticks out now is the work aspect. I’m just a teacher here but been doing some side gigs but it never ended up going anywhere. When I was home all of a sudden I had created all of before mentioned opportunities. That, maybe I could’ve created here as well if I wasn’t restricted by the visa I’m on but as of now, I can’t.

I guess I’m tired of feeling restricted by bureaucratic rules…

I really don’t know. Again I just needed to vent. I’m also aware that this is also a “the grad is always greener” situation.

If anyone wants to chime in or call me a dick that’s fine. I’m just not feeling it.

Thank you and have a nice day.

Edit: apologize for bad grammar/mistypings but it’s Reddit. No need for professionalism here, lol.

I have an active Resona Saitama bank account and I hope someone can give se input on what will happen if I leave Japan without closing the account. I know they'll eventually freeze it when my visa on record expires. After they freeze it, would I be able to return to Japan and get my money from them? Would they freeze my account before the visa expires if, for example, they sent a new debit card to my old address and it gets returned to the bank? Would they charge me any fees for freezing my account?

I live in Canada, and have visitors coming from Japan including two young kids (5 and 7). I can’t get a sense of what they like but need to get gifts for them - what’s something more unique to visitors from Japan that they might like that they can’t get in Japan?

Can you please tell us:

Application Office: Tokyo, Osaka, etc

Application Date:

Result postcard received on:

Type of PR (spouse, business owner, HSP, etc):

Request for further documents: Yes/No (If so then when and what documents please share.)

just noticed that my health insurance card expired in October but the automatic payment from my bank is still working. also I'm a student but I've noticed that every month around 10k gets deducted for the insurance even after I passed the student discount thing. (would I get the money back?)

I'm still beginner in japanese, so when I do visit the kuyakusho, how exactly can I convey this?

I'm considering applying to branch out from English teaching, but I don't wanna do it if the work environment makes the pay cut not worth it.

Edit #2: Solved!

Hello! I'm in a bit of a predicament—not in a life-or-death way, just in a "this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and I don't want to miss it" way.

I want to buy a ticket for Oasis' reunion concert next year, but unfortunately, I already spent my savings for this month on a flight ticket home. Why didn’t I save some money for this concert if I wanted to go so badly? Well, I wasn’t aware they even announced the dates until two days ago. Funny how I spent weeks randomly commenting on their YouTube for them to come to Japan, only to end up missing the announcement entirely because I’ve been busy with my final-year research project. Yep, cried about it. Definitely in the top-worst-moments-of-my-life list. Also, since I missed the lottery, I’m going to have to face the 一般発売 (sigh).

I’m a 4th-year foreign student at a Japanese university with no part-time job or アルバイト. I get a monthly allowance from my scholarship, but it’s just enough to cover the important stuff like rent, food, and transportation. That’s what’s been supporting me thus far, and I’ve been fine—I rarely indulge myself.

As I mentioned earlier, I spent the money I had saved so far on a round-trip flight home after two years of being away. I guess this is a last-ditch effort, some sort of Hail Mary, but does anyone know where someone in my situation can borrow ¥20,000?

Obviously, I tried other things before I decided to make this, honest-to-God, embarrassing post:

1. I found out that ぴあ allows buyers to pay through Atone後払い, so I applied for Atone. Unfortunately, my current maximum spending limit is only ¥5,000.

2. I tried those loan services (アイフル and アコム, to be exact), but with no luck because I’m a student with no source of income (duh).

Again, this is not a pitiful situation where I can conjure up some sympathy. I know my last choice is just waiting to buy from resellers next year once I start working—even with the hiked-up prices. I’m just worried because I’ve never bought resold tickets before. It’s just the overthinking part of me.

Thank you for any answers, genuinely. I appreciate people engaging.

(Honestly, I’m also down to be booed, lol. Make this 22-year-old girl face the sad reality of life 😭)

Edit #1: I want to clarify again that I missed the lottery. I will be trying my best to fight during the general sales this Saturday which will be on a first come, first serve basis. My plan is to choose the convenience store payment option because it will give me some time to decide before proceeding with the payment. I'm bad at explaining ><

heading to Tokyo in a week to work remotely, what's the best WeWork office there ??

Please share anything new or interesting your learned this week!

The idea is to share what you are curious about, what became your epiphany, or what you stumbled across by chance. It doesn't have to be a pro-tip or particularly useful, if it's of interest to you we'd like to hear it!

Hello,

Both me and my wife are US citizens (she is a greencard holder) and are trying to move to Japan. We need a specialist who is fluent in english to assist us with visa/immigration. My wife is Japan descent (sansei) and we would like to apply for the descendant visa. Neither of us speak fluent enough Japanese to go through this process with a Japanese speaking lawyer. I was wondering if any expats have a referral to someone who they have worked with in the past? Also we currently live in the US so this person would need to chat with us over the phone/zoom/email/etc.

Thank you so much and I'm putting it in Gods hands now that a good soul on Reddit will guide us to the right person/company.

Cardboard day is my least favorite day… grabbing everything and stacking it and using a string to tie it up just for it to still be a little loose and it just flops around is extremely irritating. Not to mention smaller cardboard typically just falls out.

Do you guys have a better recommendation to wrap up your cardboard? I’ve used cardboard packing tape before which worked exceptionally well and then was given a notice that they wouldn’t accept it because it wasn’t string/tied together but was very well bound together with tape… which is extremely stupid and had to wait another two weeks for cardboard to get picked up where I wrapped it up in a extremely loose string and they happily accepted it.

Currently renewing my residence status and went down to Shinagawa 7 weeks ago to submit my documents. Since then I have not received any response, and when I try to call them I get the automated response that the line is too busy and that I need to call later. I know immigration bureaucracy is notoriously slow and 6 weeks is a regular estimate, but my term of residence is up in around 10 days. I'm worried I might have written my address wrong and they sent the information to the wrong address, and what will happen if I receive no response in the next week or so. I also need to leave Japan in early January for school reasons. Is there anything I can do/can I ask anyone like my school to inquire for me?

Hello!

This is the photo of the bracket of shower curtain rod of my apartment. Where can I buy a pair of these in Tokyo? I bought a similar pair from Daiso but it didn’t fit in size, I need smaller ones. Where can I buy this with a variation of sizes available? Daiso had only bigger sizes.

Thanks in advance!

Background: I'm trying to change to a student visa. The school already accepted me and I have an April start. The school said that I should hear back about my visa in February, maybe early March.

My working visa expires mid-March, which means the timing is perfect.

Questions:

1. If my student visa is denied, do I keep my working visa until expiry?
2. Because immigration must know that I'm planning to quit my full-time job and join the school, if my student visa is denied, could I get a grace period to find a new job since I couldn't be expected to have been looking for one while waiting for the student visa decision?

I have been living in Kyoto for 5 years, but barely find foreigner friends. Does anyone know if there is community or groups for people who make art here?

I went to the immigration office to inform them, and was made to cancel my PR application (ask if this sounds fishy and you want the full story). One person was helpful enough to put a note on the application saying to try to resume it once I find a new job and resubmit the Application For Change of Residence with the new job details. So now I have three months from the date my employment ended until I need a new job, a month of which has passed.

My current visa is:
HSP i b
Exp: Oct 2026
Issue date: Oct 2021

My questions are:

1. If I get a job, say, teaching English, does that mean I have to switch to a different visa type, or can I keep the HSP until it expires? 1b. If I have to switch visa types from HSP, I assume I can't just keep the same PR application? I would still have enough points as long as my salary is over ~4m/yr
2. If I get a job in a different HSP area, like being a researcher, do I have to switch, and does that make a difference to resuming the PR?
3. Any advice on quickly getting an HSP job? I'm qualified for senior positions in Data Science, ML engineering, software development (python)
4. If I can't find a job of any kind within the allotted time, do I have to give up the lease on my apt? I assume they don't care as long as I keep paying the rent, but I'm just wondering about the legal implications
5. Any other advice, or information that might be helpful?

Given the above, please critique my plans:
Plan A: Find an HSP job, then resume PR application
Plan B: Find a non-HSP job that allows me to keep residence, then upgrade to an HSP job (if necessary), then resume PR application
Plan C: If I don't find a job, do a visa run, then keep looking for a job

I’m living in Japan currently with my boyfriend who is a Japanese national. We’ve been together for 3 years and are wanting to get married soon.

I’ve searched the process of getting married as an American in Japan to a national. From my understanding there’s a document that I need print, translate, and then have it notarized at the US Embassy.

I logged onto the site today and looked at the appointments for the US Embassy in Tokyo and it doesn’t even show a calendar, it just says no slots. Other embassy shows two months of appointments, but it would be very difficult to go to Osaka. Is this a bug with the calendar for the Tokyo embassy or are they just fully booked? Is there any other options I have to get the documents I need or do I need to wait indefinitely?

So, I've posted before about this boss... but recently it feels like he is deliberately trying to antagonize me. I've done a lot of Googling in Japanese, and I feel like SOME of the things he does BORDER on "power harassment," but that I don't necessarily have a cut and dry case.

To be clear, I don't want to take LEGAL action but am considering going to HR with a request for a transfer to another department.

Most recent example: He is LOOKING for things to reject my "decision making" applications for. He will reject them for typos (to be clear, these are for things like internal team-building events. I'm not a programmer or engineer, nor is this external-facing PR... all fields in which a typo could be damaging. These are purely internal documents, and are not the final versions. The executive above HIM will re-write them anyway, so the only purpose is to convey the overall plan.) So last time, I spent three hours proofreading the thing, used Chat GPT, proofread it again. There was not a typo in the damn thing... so he rejected it because I had attached a quote from a vendor that included an "options" section. He came back with "we're not using these options," so I explained that both the proposal document and the contract clearly stated that we had declined the options and listed the same amount as the "without options" line in the quote. He rejected it, told me to get a new quote from the vendor, and set approval back a week because the other person who has to sign off on it is on leave next week. It seems like he is just determined not to pass anything without rejecting it at least once.

He will repeatedly correct something based on his personal preference, say, "This way is better, right?" And will persist until I say "Yes, I think so too."

He told me to remove my name and my junior colleague's name from a proposal for an event we also planned last year (with our names on it) and to instead list the author as (HIS NAME)以下

He constantly tells me to "Be more like (another colleague at the same level as me" and tells me that my "personality is the problem".

Rather than giving the people under him MORE responsibility with time, he now allows us (this one isn't just me) to do FEWER tasks than the company's rules permit and that we were allowed to do a year ago. He consistently calls us 担当者 in the way one might disparagingly say "children" or "unskilled workers," even though only one person is actually a 担当者 and the rest of us including me are 主任 or above.

It just seems like he is constantly, consciously, trying to beat me down and break me...for the past few weeks I've spent every Saturday crying in bed. It takes a full day to get over being told I'm worthless, that one typo is a bigger crime than setting the entire project back, etc etc etc (again, this is not programming or engineering... it's a draft document that IS going to get completely rewritten by the executives for an internal communications project). I feel like he's probably JUST on this side of "HR isn't going to do shit" but... I don't know. Any thoughts? I really don't want to job hunt AGAIN but I'm considering it.

A few months ago I had an odd encounter with an old man at the park, I told my husband about it because some of the things he said/behaviour rubbed me the wrong way. After that, I've met him several times at different hours and different areas of the park(the park is huge). Taking a shortcut through some trees, I've caught the old man a couple times in the bushes/trees facing the direction of where I often play with my dog and other dog owners. I stopped going to this park for months during the summer but last week I caught him again in the bushes, he acted like he was accidentally there. Another day last week I was walking at a different time in the day and different area and he came running after me. I discussed this with my husband again and also with a friend and they both told me it will not be useful to tell the park police because he hasn't done anything. My friend said it will be more effective to bring my husband, but I have my doubts because my stalker only comes out when others I know are not around. I'm starting to get really annoyed, especially since I know I'm being watched. I love the park it's beautiful but also it's the biggest green area in the city center and my dog can socialize and relieve some stress. What should I do, should I give the park police a map of where to find him and asked them if they can patrol more? Anyone else has had a similar situation?

I dont usually buy liquor, actually never. My cousins wife wants a bottle of "the chita" suntory whiskey for when i visit for the holidays. Looking online its like 6k yen. Im just wondering if there are cheaper options....where do you guys shop for liquor? is there a place that sells liquor at cheaper prices? if its pretty much the same everywhere then i will just go to any place that sells liquor and buy it.

Imagine the inequality and inefficiency of the current system.

There's even a environment tax to take care of the forest, why don't the government do the same for TV?

I put the wrong number and sent it to different person and the wrong person whom i sent the money doesn’t reply to me but he collected the money what will i do did this happen to you? Did your money came back please help me guys

I’m getting into fermenting and want to standardize and clean everything. I’m struggling to find a no-rinse sanitizer. Surely there must be a commercial one available for all the breweries and miso, natto, and kimchi makers.

I’m taking JLPT N3 tomorrow.

So a few years ago I posted on Reddit and was in a very bad mental space. Glad to say I’m recovered now. Sometimes I still think that if only I could just push through, if only I didn’t waste my time, I would’ve had N2/1 by now. But can’t change the past, it is what it is and I’m just trying to move forward.

A little nervous but hope I pass. Wish me luck

Looking for kiddo (3yo) a Sat class to learn English and make new friends. We’re happy with her Japanese kindergarten and we don’t speak much English at home (I’m French, wife is Japanese)

Ideally around Shinjuku / Yoyogi / Hatsudai

Any recommendations ? Thanks !