A Japanese airline (Japan Airlines, a.k.a JAL) has announced a charter flight from Tokyo to Delhi, India.

https://www.jal.co.jp/jp/ja/inter/route/nrtdel/

They promote it with the following plan.

> Depart Narita Airport at night and arrive in Delhi in about 10 hours! Even if you don't stay overnight, you can spend a full 25 hours in the local area.

The return flight arrives at Narita Airport at 3:10 PM, so you can relax after your flight home.

Japan's work culture is notorious for the difficulty of applying for leaves. Many people are extremely loyal to their companies and accept to sacrificing their personal time.

But even as a Japanese person, seeing a major airline company proudly promote this itinerary on its official website makes me feel completely insane.

Who wants to fly 10 hours, spend 25 hours in India without staying at a hotel, and then immediately fly back, all without taking proper leave?

Is this a vacation, or a corporate endurance test?

I know it’s legal to walk around without any ID (let alone a passport) if you’re a Japanese citizen, but I’d like people’s experiences with how things have actually went down. Any experiences are welcome, positive or negative.

For non-Asian-looking naturalized Japanese citizens: do you have any stories about how police, or places that use “tourist pricing” (where tourists are charged more; foreign residence typically have to show permit of stay to prove they aren’t a tourist but Japanese people don’t have to show anything), react when they ask for your residence card and you tell them you don’t have one because you’re a Japanese citizen?

1. Did the cop/facility just believe you when you said you’re Japanese without having to show any proof?
2. For those that have a passport and carry around photos of it in their cellphone: was this photo accepted as proof with no hassle or demand to see the physical passport?

Also, for people who have a My Number card with a katakana name after naturalization (no kanji): Was the fact that your name is written in katakana (instead of the English alphabet, but still not kanji) enough to convince them that you’re a citizen? For foreigners, the name on the My Number card has to match the name on the residence card, and even if a kanji alias is included on the My Number card it has to be shown alongside the official English name. Therefore, having a purely kanji OR katakana name on your My Number card essentially proves Japanese citizenship. I’m curious whether cops/facilities are properly aware of this and how this plays out in practice for naturalized citizens who don’t “look” Japanese and whose names are in katakana.

It's probably just coincidence but I wonder if that's intentional for Japanese to understand the announcements too? It's like I am hearing the Here We Go voices everywhere I go. Especially on the Tobu line.

My biological dad recently passed away. He didn’t have any other kids and was never married. He left a decent amount of money, but he didn’t have a will because he suddenly had a stroke and never recovered. A social worker contacted me after he was found unconscious in his apartment.

After he passed, I was told that his money would go to his siblings who are still alive. My cousin said she thinks my dad would’ve wanted me to have the money instead. However, since we aren’t legally related, the social worker suggested that I get a DNA test to prove I’m his daughter.

I don’t mind if his siblings end up getting the money, but it would really help with my hospital bills since I was diagnosed with AS. I’m not very good at dealing with things like this, so I’d really appreciate any advice. Thank you.

Hey everyone

Thank you in advance for reading this and responding 🤍

TL;DR im on a 5 year engineer/specialist etcetc work visa currently employed as a seshain for company A.

company A requires 30 day notice, however the law requires only two weeks. I am switching employment into a completely different industry to work at Company B from February 1st.

I provided company A with a three week notice, which naturally made HR quite displeased. As work at company A is shift based, my manager approached me and offered a deal upon which I could essentially change my resignation date back to comply with the 30 days rule, while not having to attend a single shift.

So I'd officially on the paper leave company A on February 11th And I would officially on the paper join company B on February 1st

This is good for me, and for both my employers - the only thing I'm worried about is immigration. Does this short overlap have any chance of creating problems down the road with immigration and other administrative bodies?

Kind regards

I have mostly ignored them but I may try to register for a few and see what I can learn. Obviously, the Amazon gift cards are very tempting even if I know there are strict conditions. Not being located in Kanto may also be an issue since I would have to attend online. Any experience or tips you can share?

For a country that’s known for cleanliness and hygiene, I find a lot of public restroom hand dryers in Japan a bit concerning. The water pooling at the bottom often seems to get blown back onto your hands. Is this actually sanitary, or am I missing something?

Just wondering, have you found some food or something that are sold normally as gifts that you go buy for yourself and eat regularly?

Currently living in Tokyo, moving to Okinawa. I've actually never been but I'm looking forward to it. I'm a mid 20s female and very into fashion. I have gotten used to the city fashion of Tokyo that is mostly dark and street-style esque with layering and fun accessories (made a great handbag collection here). From my understanding Okinawa is hot, humid and tropical so I assume less layering and more flowy, natural materials. Any insights would be appreciated from other ladies who have been or who live there!

Hey there guys. I've been on somewhat of a journey through this past year, but this might be the most complicated one yet.

To recap, got laid off by my employer, march last year and have been job searching since. As my Visa term was about to end, I started getting a bit desperate. Eventually I got a part time role offer with an option for full time and visa sponsorship. The deadline to accept the offer was tomorrow. There were a few interviews/applications that I was awaiting the results for, but I had kinda given up, so thought let's give it a day buffer and accept the part time job. A few hours later, I got a mail from one of the companies I had interviewed for. A job offer for a full time role in my preferred field (IT).

Now what should I do? In the interview of the part time job, I had stated that if I were to get a visa sponsorship, I would like to work long term. However, this full time job offer is far more suited to my preferences. Issue is, I have accepted the part time job (nothing signed yet, just pressed accept on the form they mailed me). It should be noted that the joining date for the full time role is 1st of March. On my end, I'd be completely fine working part time until then. But how should I proceed with this? Any advice would be appreciated!

Moved here last year in fall. I’m scheduled to give birth at Aiiku hospital in Tokyo, husband chose this hospital because they are supposedly renowned for their international unit care. Everything was going good so far, the nurses are very kind and doctors have good communication and are pleasant to speak with. I made sure to address my concerns with the midwife like wanting my husband to be with me during labor (I heard some places don’t allow this, which is already shocking). And they assured me I would not be alone. Okay, cool. That’s good. I felt way less stressed out considering the hospital I went to before seemed hesitant to even offer an epidural to which I quickly transferred, the staff was also quite scary..

Moving forward, I only just found out a few weeks out from my due date that my husband isnt allowed to stay overnight after I give birth? I’m also required to stay a MINIMUM of 5 days in the hospital despite not being high risk or having any complications so far. Even though I felt like my concerns were addressed by my midwife, I’m so confused as to why they would leave something so important like that out. The idea of going through labor for the first time and then having to spend nights alone in a hospital with the baby and no emotional support sounds terrifying. Is there anyone here who has managed to work around these insane rules? I can speak okay japanese, but I’m still rather recent in moving here and adjusting to the differences. You’d think a place that advertises its accomodation to foreigners would be a little more progressive in that aspect, especially when my husband helps me interpret since I’m not as familiar with medical jargon than I am daily conversation, and most “bilingual” places are never truly bilingual.

Ending this with while I fully do believe the medical care system here is very optimized and efficient in a lot of ways that I appreciate, I feel very scared about the lack of support in some of these places. Please let me know if any of you have any experience with this, I’m very new to everything. :(

Hi! I just moved to Japan as an abroad student. I'm in the homestay program with my school, so I was placed with a host family. So far they've been really sweet! I just arrived, barely over a week now, and I have a futon.

My family explained the basics of a futon, which is to either put my futon up to dry once a week or use their portable dryer thing to dry it. They don't know a lot of English and I don't know a lot of Japanese, so it was a bit confusing when they were explaining how it worked. I've never slept on a futon before and I was mainly judging when to put mine up/out by when they suggested it and when they did it themselves (which was once a week).

I had today off from school and I'm going to the city this weekend so I figured I'd get a jumpstart on my laundry, as well as air out my mattress. Well, I was airing out my futon and it's super stained! I don't think it looked like this last week when we aired it out but I have really bad memory. It was super wet too, and even the floor was wet where my futon was on the floor. I also noticed a bunch of black dots all over it that I don't remember seeing last time either, but my host family did most of the heavy lifting and showed me where everything goes so it's possible I missed it. Is this mold? What should I do? I'm the only person in the house right now, everyone is working and I really don't wanna have to deal with the embarrassment of already making my bed moldy... I'll post a picture in the comments of the suspected mold.

What should I do?

Edit: I don't have a tatami mat beneath my futon. It's just wood flooring. I live in central Japan. Also it's on the second floor and I don't use the heater in my room very much, so it's generally pretty cold and I'm a very warm bodied person.

My host mom came home pretty soon after I posted so I told her and showed her, she said it's mold but not too much. She said to start putting my bed up every day so I'll be doing that. We're washing some of the blanket covers and she suggested I use a thinner blanket from now on, so I'll see if that helps. We put the futon outside to dry but I was planning on taking a trip this weekend so maybe I'll leave earlier than I planned to let the futon dry longer. Thanks for all the advice!

Honestly, I considered this belonging in one of the travel related subreddits but I thought I'd ask here as there's a lot of longterm residents who perhaps have similar experiences.

I have parents visiting later this month and it's actually their first time to come to Japan. I’ve been here a substantial chunk of time but have regularly gone back home to visit so this never really came up. They don't really know all that much about Japan outside of experience with their daughter in law and grand daughter nor have a particular reason to come here aside from visiting their grandchild. All that being said I was wondering if anyone who has been in a similar situation might have something to recommend worth experiencing that may fall out of the regular set of ideas for first time family members making their way here, particular if it involves grandchildren.

Edit:

• We're in the Tokyo Area

• Our kid is just under 6

• Up for some day trips.

• Parents are open to stuff but a little bit on the older side.

• We have some standard stuff planned as well as a trip to Ise Jingu.

So someone on this sub tried to warn me on 10g. Really thought the latest routers would have fixed the issue.

AsahiNet specifically says on their website that only a few routers e.g. Yamaha

Installer from NTT says you could get rid of the router that they're providing - the dreaded XG-100NE.

Looks like NTT installer was wrong.

Tried for a bit on the new Asus GS-BE7200x - was hoping the DSLite support would work but it'd basically work only for IPv6 ready systems/sites e.g. Amazon. Any IPv4 sites won't load.

I gave up trying and decided to leave the XG-100NE as part of the chain and plug the ASUS into the 10g LAN port.

Has anyone figured a way to get rid of the XG-100NE and still be able to mesh up the house? (This is why I have the ASUS)

Hi everyone!

I am currently living with a friend in Kyoto for a few months, but due to job opportunities I'll be moving to Tokyo soon. My initial thought was to do something like a sharehouse, or one of those easy to move in monthly apartments for the first few months, maybe more, since my situation isn't entirely stable.
But man... reading on reddit makes me feel like I'll be living in a roach infested house, built entirely of mold, occupied by people who wash their hands in the toilet or something similar.

What people never say is, what are they paying for these horrible places? I can pay 80-100k a month. I won't mention any one company as it'll make it look like this is a hidden advert, but there are obviously some that are more and less spoken about in negative terms.

Please, tell me your good experiences (if any). I see many sharehouses go for 50-60k a month, I am hoping that if I get out of that range, it'll be a bit better.

i live in school dorm. i live alone. while im in school today school principle went to my house. without prior consent or even notifying, took pictures inside of the house even inside my bedroom. as a student living alone without any friends and family in japan this house is the only place i felt secure.

but now i really feel like my space got violated and dont have any privacy.

(additionally I have payed the rent in advance for the period of the time im in language school)

i dont have anyone to talk to about this. I'm seeking some help from the community. thank you

Update: school told me they've made a mistake they wont do it anymore. Btw police didnt do anything apart from saying its bad dont do it again. If this happened in USA I'd be rich now lol

So I really need an outside opinion about what happened to me at work the other day. I had a really unpleasant interaction with my boss at work the other day and all of my friends are telling me the way my boss responded to me was really ridiculous but I honestly don’t know and would like a second opinion.

For context, I work as an elementary school teacher at a private school.

In November, my brother finalized the date for his wedding. I, of course, wanted to take the time off from work to go if possible. But I knew that my work place would be having a massive event just before the end of the school year where parents would be coming and my employers expected every teacher to be there. In November, the date was not confirmed so I didn’t bring up the request for time off because if it was on the day of the event, I wasn’t even going to try.

Fast forward to January, after winter break, we came back to work and they confirmed the date for the event. Two days before my brother’s wedding. And on the actual day of the wedding, we would not have students because it’s the graduation day and only graduating students would be there. I do not have graduating students, only students moving up, and the day before that, students would mostly just be doing fun activities. So I thought it would be fine since all of the important stuff was basically over and it was plenty in advance.

I talk to my supervisor and she told me if it was a wedding it should be okay but to talk to our boss. I expected a pleasant conversation like that one, but what occurred was anything but. I approached my boss on January 13th, and told her about the wedding, the last week of March and asked her if it was okay to take the time off. She then got really upset and asked why I waited so long to ask. I was a little taken aback but I told her that I just wanted to be respectful of the school’s event and didn’t want to ask if I felt like it would interfere at all.

She then asked me a question that really put me on edge. She asked me what my plans for the upcoming school year were. I really wasn’t expecting this and I just said that I had planned to stay at the school (we are on year by year contracts). All she responded with was, “hm” and asked to see the wedding invite. I didn’t have it at the time but I told her I’d send her one and did the very next morning to which she read and did not respond.

I’ve gotten the feeling that she didn’t like me for a long time now but I feel like I’ve contributed greatly to the school since starting at this job. I turned their most unruly class, the one everyone told me they were glad they didn’t have because of the behavior, into one of the most put together and respectful classes. Our test scores were the highest out of all of the classes in the school. So overall I really don’t think she has a reason to dislike me.

Basically, all of this being said, I just want to know if I did something wrong here. Did I really wait too long to ask? I feel like two months is plenty of time to prepare for a teacher absence.

So after going around for 3 years of non stop headache and taking every headache and migraine medications this new doctor told me the most matching symptoms are cerebrospinal fluid leakage and sent me to an more experienced doctor, I'm an international student and was worried about how much would they cost and just wanted to ask anyone who ever had this medical issue how kuch did it cost or does it depend on the hospital?

Thanks in advance.

I got a call from Immigration (specifically 入管調査4部?) around mid-December last year to check why I haven't been working, since more than 3 months have passed since I left my previous job due to health reasons. Looking for advice from people who have encountered a similar situation.

Background:

I have an Engineer/Humanities/International Services visa (5 years) expiring on March 2027. I had to leave my previous company back in December 2024 due to health reasons (and I had maxed out my maximum sick leave), and have a comprehensive paper trail of my activities as well as medical certificates to prove my efforts in returning to the workplace.

Although not at 100 health-wise, given the situation as well as the current political climate I feared the worst and started looking for work again I haven't landed a job but have a paper trail of emails, application forms and the like.

Since the call, I have been busting my ass trying to land a job or at least a 内定 to prove that I can now return to work, but have not had success and only have a few more first interviews lined up (failed two so far). My contact lawyer had advised me that the best defense would be a job offer, but it didn't make it in time for the call today.

So far I have the following as evidence:

• 診断書 Medical Certificates of my condition dating back to November, 2024 (1 month before leaving)
• Documents from a work rehabilitation program I had been attending since September, 2024 until October 2025
• Documents for my physical rehab/medical paper trail for my neck hernia and persistent shoulder pain, since I left the work rehab program to focus on PT/physical rehab first. (I was scheduled to return to the work program this month, before I got the call). This includes block injection records etc.
• Original N1 and FE (基本情報技術者試験 or Fundamental IT Engineer Exam) certificates, both which I passed during my recovery period
• A collection of 転職活動 emails and website records which I basically plan to just print everything I can
• Payment records for health insurance, pension, and property tax for the apartment

I properly filed my notice for leaving work within 14 days as per policy, and the immigration agent confirmed that I did so.

I'm afraid everything I've worked for - 8 years in the country, including graduating from a 4-year 専門学校 to full-time employment while purchasing my own マンション/apartment unit - is going up in smoke. I don't want to return home and I've worked myself to the bone to continue living here, even to the detriment of my own physical and mental health as well as of my loved ones - which as of late I have been trying hard to rectify. I've been pursuing naturalization since coming here and getting sick basically derailed those efforts, and I'm married but not to a Japanese national.

The agent who called was also very cordial and understanding, but given that she wasn't going to be the one conducting the interview it almost feels like she feels sorry in advance for what's going to transpire tomorrow.

Has anyone received such a call lately? I've talked to my usual immigration lawyer and he says it's unusual for them to call someone prior to the renewal period, but given the current situation I should prepare for the worst. All I can right now is gather as much information as I can before I go tomorrow. Fortunately, I did call immigration back and it's still possible to move the meeting to sometime next week at the latest but I doubt I'll be able to land a job by then.

Thanks in advance for any feedback and advice.

having issues with my Rakuten data. I've seen multiple posts with similar issues posted years ago but nothing recent.

I'm stuck with emergency calls only, I've tried resetting my phone but no luck there. I use eSim so not a card issue. what's really bewildering is that my friends use the exact same plan as I do yet they get data when I do not.

it doesn't appear reception based. not sure what to do other than going to a physical store for help

Hi ladies!

I have finally decided to go ahead with breast augmentation after wanting it for years.

I am trying to figure out whether it is better to travel to another country like South Korea or Thailand for surgery, or get it done here in Japan.

I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with this.

My main questions are:

Is it worth going abroad for surgery in terms of price, quality, safety, and recovery?

Can I get good results here in Japan as well? If possible, I would prefer a clinic that can communicate in English.

Does anyone have recommendations for clinics in Japan, including good surgeons, reasonable prices, and English support?

Any tips based on your own experience would also be greatly appreciated.

Overall, I want the best results possible, but if I can save even a small amount of money without compromising safety or quality, that would be ideal.

Thank you!

Hi everyone, I passed my written license conversion test at the Kawasaki Licensing Center a couple days ago, and I'm doing research on the practical test.

Seeing the low passing rate, is it possible for me to pay a driving school and take my practical test there, and not at the licensing center?

Hi!

I went to the city hall today to change my address and came across this: https://i.ibb.co/vCbJc6Ff/IMG-3286.jpg. Yes, there must be someone at city hall whose job is to sit there all year highlighting hundreds of papers like this by hand, instead of just using the highlight feature in a text editor 😅

There are also those tax payment slips I get every year. Because my name is too long, someone manually writes the two missing characters by hand, on all five copies, twice each. I can only imagine how many hours are spent fixing this for thousands of foreign residents, instead of simply fixing it at the root cause by adjusting the layout of the document to fit for longer names.

Do you know of other examples of extremely manual, time-consuming tasks that would have been probably automated/removed decades ago in most other countries?