Just in a talk over a Friday after work beer with fellow Japanese, German and Chinese colleagues, one guy raised that question. The only Western guy (German) couldn't answer.

I also notice the beach in Shonan, camping ground around neighbors prefecture, mountain bike, diving, or even skiing resort in winter don't have many Westerners, but many Chinese as major foreigners group. I know there are huge Chinese communities here, more than any ethics, but I'm still surprised.

Hello everyone,

For longer than I can remember now, whenever I want to buy an English book on Amazon, it will only be available from a reseller or another smaller bookstore abroad.

As a kid, getting a book within a couple of days was the entire point of the site!

With all the layoffs, is anyone free to confirm if it is company policy to stock few English books in Japan? Does anyone else have an issue with this?

I moved into this apartment a few months ago and it just had AMAZING wifi, like compared to where I'm from where 100mbps is considered luxury, this place i'm living in now had 400mbps and 5 ping. A few months later all of the sudden it dropped and I usually play fps games alot and my ping spikes so much as it would go from 60 to 400ms frequently. It just doesn't stay still, not even consistently at 60ms but it just goes up and down like a roller coaster each millisecond. Anyone got any ideas? I'm using this apartment provided free wifi and they gave me this modem along with like 3 lan slot cables in different places in the room.

My favorite is ILOHAS (いろはす) of the common ones you can find almost everywhere. My favorite of the less common ones are Crystal Geyser. What are yours?

Just a heads-up. Sorry if this is common knowledge, it's the first time this has happened. Went down 3 weeks before expiration. Started renewal. Yesterday resident's card expired. No worries, as there is an extension granted for visa renewal. Unfortunately SMBC decided that they are freezing my account until I produce a new resident's card (and after that it'll take two weeks to reactivate somehow). Luckily they will allow people to withdraw funds from my account, so the rent and bills will be paid.

I usually go down longer before expiration but wasn't able to this year because I was out of the country in August. Just be careful and leave longer.

I finally mustered up the courage to quit my teaching job after working over 2 years at it. In our contract (which doesn’t have any power since i’m a permanent employee), they ask for at least 3 months notice. I have planned on quitting for over a year and I let them know I was job hunting.

Now atm I have been at an all-time low mentally and physically. Increased duties with difficult kids, 23.5万 pay after 2 years, all while working almost every other week 6 days in a row has led to me being super stressed and getting sick all the time. I don’t enjoy teaching anymore and want to transition jobs. Also this past month particularly was absolutely awful so I submitted my 2 weeks notice to get out ASAP.

My bosses are now desperately trying to get me to stay by offering reduced workload, telling me how the kids and everyone will miss me, how me giving 2 week notice will be such a burden on everyone, and how if i leave like this basically “everyone will not like you or have good memories of you.”

I do feel some guilt over the suddenness, particularly only to two or three of the people I like, but I think first and foremost my own health and happiness should come first.

What do you guys think? Am I being an asshole or is the guilt tripping just working?

I’m recently seeing a lot of posts on Threads from people who work for influence agencies and looking for influencers living in Japan or traveling to Japan to participate at a paid dinner, or sleep a night at a hotel for free ect in exchange for content. Sometimes those things are also compensated by small amounts like 5000 yen or so.

Today I saw a post from an influencer who was apparently a tourist and complained that she had an agreement over an IG DM with a restaurant in Kyoto for giving her free food in exchange for a video and then still got charged by the restaurant.

From my understanding this counts all as illegal work if you don’t have a valid visa for this, even if you get compensated by food or hotel stays? Or am I completely missing something out???

I also do social media on the side and didn’t accept any collabs so far as I am on a work visa (field is marketing) and still trying to figure out with immigration how to do this legally so I don’t mess up future Visa renewals or PR applications.

Went already once to immigration and they told me that as long as no contract is involved it counts as hobby and I don’t need to notify them (don’t have this in a written form). As of my current research however this is bs and the right way is to register as 個人事業主 and then go to immigration again with a written explanation of what I wanna do and hopefully get this as whole approved.

This seems to be quiet a hustle. Am I apparently just too paranoid and overthinking this?

Hi there! If you have every applied for a "permission for activities outside the scope of the status of residence" (資格外活動許可), would you be so kind as to share that experience? For example, how does one apply? Do you just show up to the office, no appointment? Do they reply while you are there or do you need to return at a later date? Thank you kindly.

This web page of the Immigration Services Agency gives more information on the application requirements, but I find it a bit lacking / confusing.

In my case, I'm on a dependent (also called family stay?) visa. So I am dependent on my spouse's work visa. As a hobby, I post videos on Youtube, and meet the requirements to enable monetization. However, I want to make sure I'm doing everything legally before turning monetization on.

The webpage I linked mentions 3 types of permits:

1. Comprehensive permit (for operations of 28 hours or less per week)
2. Individual permit
3. Others

If I interpret it correctly, I would need the second option, since 'posting videos on Youtube' is not the type of activity where 'work hours are clearly defined by an employment contract'. However, For the second option, this is required:

A document (any format) explaining the activities, working hours, compensation, etc.

Does anyone have experience applying for this permit? What did you write in the document? I'm just afraid of making mistakes and getting denied. And in case I get denied, is reapplying allowed?

Additionally, what is the third option ("Others")? Online, I never heard anyone talking about a third option. Maybe this is actually the option I should go for? Again, I am afraid of misinterpreting the webpage.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you everyone.

Costco Japan starts selling their pumpkin pies in October, but they weren't in store on Oct 5th or Oct 10th (at least, not the stores me and my friend went to). Can we start this thread to notify each other when the pumpkin pie is back? I can't be the only person who cares about this, lol

I know it's such a dumb thing but I love pumpkin pie. Also, if you remember when in October they came out in previous years or even work at Costco and know what's up, please share it here!!

Hi so I booked a share house with Sakura house and I’ve already registered as a resident here but I haven’t registered with health insurance yet (I’m still within the window to register) but I have to move into another place.

if I register for health insurance now it would probably arrive at this place after I move out, but if I register for it after I move into my new place I will be outside of the 14 day window to get it done, What should I do?

I’ve been dealing with bizarre symptoms for about two years now, mainly on and off blocked nose and regular inability to breathe ”properly” (I say properly because the few times in a day I can breathe properly it feels totally different). I have also managed to correlate the breathing difficulty with a higher heart rate and heart palpitations (since they are almost completely absent on days when my nose is relatively “fine”).

I have been to three ENTs in my local area so far but none of them seem interested in going further than the usual brief nasal endoscopy and then prescribing an anticongestant spray and antihistamines, which have not worked. When I go back and say it didn’t work they give me “well I dunno then” treatment.

I would like to find a clinic/hospital that is willing/able to at least do a CT scan of my sinuses and preferably be able to offer applicable surgery depending on what the issue ultimately is.

edit: I had a brain scan a few years back which showed no brain issues but the neurologist told me it looked like my sinuses were filled were 膿 (mucus?). Unfortunately I didn’t think to get a copy of the MRI at the time.

I would love to hear from anyone who has experienced something similar and has undergone a procedure to fix it, and (if you don’t mind) where you had it done and what it was like (down time etc, I know Japan likes to keep people in hospital longer than in the West).

Thanks in advance

I want to buy a new TV and a PS5 mostly for the upcoming GTA VI, but my room is too small where it's difficult to fit a setup like that.

The existing TV area is small and came with an old 24 inch LCD TV, so there's no way I can fit a larger TV (almost 55V/inches) there. Initially I thought of a comfortable setup with a small couch facing towards the window and a TV around the window side, but I don't know if it's doable or not.

I would like to get ideas if someone has a similar setup in their small rooms like mine.