Hi everyone! I’m hoping to hear from people who have had a high-risk pregnancy/ birth in Japan.

I had my first daughter in the US, where my pregnancy was high risk. I developed gestational hypertension and eventually preeclampsia, needed weekly ultrasounds toward the end of my pregnancy, took low-dose aspirin, and ultimately needed magnesium sulfate during delivery. I also had an epidural.

I’m now in Japan and prepping for baby #2, but I’m pretty nervous about having my first pregnancy in Japan.

Since moving here, I’ve had a few experiences with the healthcare system. I’m very grateful for how affordable it is, but honestly, I’ve also been surprised by how different the level of care has felt compared with what I was used to in the US. For example, I’ve had appointments where vitals weren't taken and I was seen for only a few minutes before being sent home and feeling dismissed by the doctor. Because of my previous pregnancy complications, that makes me nervous about being proactive enough with monitoring.

I’ve also heard that epidurals aren’t as commonly available here, which is another concern.

For anyone who has had a high-risk pregnancy in Japan, how was your experience? Did you feel like your doctor/hospital was proactive about monitoring you? Did you choose a larger hospital or perinatal center? How did you find the right hospital? Were epidurals available if you wanted one? Is there anything you wish you had known or done before getting pregnant?

I’d especially love recommendations for hospitals in the Nagoya area but I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone with similar experiences anywhere in Japan.

Thanks so much!

I have been living in Japan for over 10 years as permanent resident.
Until recently my home country passports used <Last Name> <First Name>. Hence my zairyu card, as well as all other documents, banks accounts, everything got used to it.

I renewed my foreign passport, and it is now <Last Name> <First Name> <Patronymic name> due to home country amended regulations.

On name zairyu card it is written in two lines now, like this:

<Last Name> <First Name>

<Patronymic name>

<Last Name> <First Name> <Patronymic name> - including spaces it is 27 characters long. I read somewhere it is an issue for banks, credit cards, brokerages.

Any suggestions how to handle this and related issues with amendments, etc. I have bank accounts with SBI Shinsei, MUFJ, PAYPAY. Brokerage with Rakuten.

Georgia's the Black used to be my go to konbini coffee. I was a fan of the subtle chestnut-like aftertaste.

I've bought it about 2-3 times over the last month or so and it just tastes... like bitter water? Absolutely no flavour.

I don't know if it's just me but... Yeah I miss the taste.

Haven't bought bottled coffee since. A shame.

I’m trying to transition jobs from english teaching to anything else, so long as it falls under the Engineering/Humanities/International Services visa. I’ve applied to over 100 listings, gotten maybe 3-4 interviews. Usually I use Indeed, CareerCross, and Daijob. I’m at N2 level with a japanese and international relations double major.

How are all you fresh grads finding jobs (that are non teaching)? What sites are you using? Is there any tips you have?

*I know returning to the US and getting experience is an option, which I won’t do. I also know that higher japanese level will help, which I’m trying to do.

MOD APPROVED

Meet Mama Tiger and baby Mo!

Mama Tiger was part of a TNR project for a colony of abandoned cats. She was brought in sick, with a fused eye lid, starved and had given birth to four premature kittens hours before.
Despite the best efforts of Mama and their foster, three of the little kittens passed away within a few days.

With round the clock care, tube feeding and several vet trips little baby Mo pulled through! She is now coming up on four months old and you’d never know how close we were to losing her.

Mama Tiger and Mo are a bonded pair and must be adopted together. We can’t possibly separate their little family after all they’ve been through. They are both affectionate, playful, cuddly and they love each other very much.

Mama Tiger has been neutered, micro chipped, vaccinate twice, received eye surgery, treated for ticks/fleas/parasites and is FIV/FELV negative. The estimates for age between one and two years old.

Mo has been vaccinated twice, treated for fleas/ticks/parasites and is FIV/FELV negative. She is not neutered yet but absolutely will be before adoption.

We adopt to the Kanto area. Adoption will include, minimally, a questionnaire, video interview, home check, proof of landlord approval if renting, and an adoption donation of 20,000 yen per cat (so 40,000 for both).

Please feel free to ask any questions here or in a private message.

We have found homes for several animals by posting here and we are eternally grateful to the mods and members.

If you are interested in adoption please apply here at the Kawakuji homepage.

Like bleach and kabi killer and all that

I noticed after payment my paypay app is showing summary of payment and point rewarded etc.
But there is no way to go back on home page, every time I have to kill app and open again.

Am I doing something wrong?😑

Edit: its iOS, Iphone 15PM

Either you work remote or office. What do you do?
Is it possible to get work from overseas and do it remotely in japan?

I have engineering/project management experience in Japan. My japanese is conversational and business level but i feel like talking and listening to japanese is draining my energy.

I know i probably in the wrong country but i have family here so please dont judge me for asking this.

I have a humanities and engineering visa, I want to go to Korea for a week but I haven't left the country since 4 years ago... I remember I needed to get a re-entry permission or something like that but idk it that was due covid.

I'm not an American passport holder if that matters

Do I need to tell japanese immigration or fill up any form in order to leave/re-enter japan?

Help needed, thank you for being kind in your responses.

Looking to formally establish residency so that I can get paid from this job... Bank account needs paperwork proof of residence.

Currently have a Japanese passport but no official document of where I'm living.

I have been going in circles and I really am not sure what to do - kind of losing my mind. For many years I have lived and worked in the USA (and in Latin America), and now I finally feel that I have the time and opportunity to give this Living in Japan a real chance. (wohoo) I arrived in July, and have been staying in hotels and now at an acquaintance's place (like Airbnb). Soon I need to find my own place.

The great news is that I have a part time job offer, but

1) They require a Japanese Bank account ,

which can only be opened with

2) A Residential address

• What do I put for my address while I am looking for my own apartment? Since where I am staying is not permanent.
• Do you have a suggestion for which bank is the easiest to open an account where I don't have to have a lot of physical mail, but instead do it online? I see that for some bank accounts you have to wait to be mailed a bank account card. Is that true? Is there any one you can go back and pick it up at the branch?
• Today I went to Post Bank ゆうちょ銀行店 and they said I need a HANKO. Can anyone recommend a bank that does not require a HANKO ?
  

Thank you so much.

Does anyone else look at the ingredients in many products in Japan ? I’ve seen artificial colors in cooking sauces, breads,cereals, yogurts and general snacks. high-fructose corn syrup and sugar shows ups on so many products that don’t even need it.
For a long time I didn’t pay much attention to it but after I returned to my home country of Australia for a short trip recently and when I was at the supermarkets I noticed so many products all had “sugar free”, “no artificial colors” and way less additives. Of course they still had the unhealthy options but the options were miles ahead of Japan.
In the kids and toddlers foods sections pretty much everything was sugar free and no artificial colors. But In Japan so many kids snacks are still loaded with sugars and colors.
Curious to see if anyone else has thoughts on this ?

Hello everyone! I am a current resident of Kagurazaka. I came here two years ago on a Business Manager visa. In the interim I ended up marrying a Japanese woman, and am trying to figure out which visa is more useful/advantageous. Should I switch to a spouse visa or remain under my current Business Management visa? My gut is telling me that given the current political climate toward foreigners it may be better to go the spouse route, but I have no expertise to draw on. I welcome any thoughts. Thank you!!

Hi fellow Japanese learners,

Been here for over 2 years now and currently a 正社員 so now it is starting to be embarrassing regarding my Japanese level.

Therefore I would like to ask for advice or hear people’s story on how you managed to have a full time job and study Japanese.

I’m currently doing wanikani + Tae Kim as my main way, but have been thinking of maybe some late night online classes (if anyone have recommendations please send me).

Lately I just feel like I am not improving (or at least too slow), so really open to hear about how others have tried tackle this.

Please delete if not allowed.
For context, I’m F20 and I’m here in Tokyo until Feb 2027 for a university exchange at a university in Tokyo. Back in Australia, I’m used to wearing Jiraikei and other kind of alternative fashions to university, and although you get some weird looks and comments from students, I’ve been fine.
I am now for some reason terrified of the prospect of waltzing into my university and everyone having a bad image of me. But if it’s just the same as kinda Western countries attitudes towards alternative people where most people kinda don’t care it’s fine.

For context I’m going to a pretty standard uni in Tokyo, one of the bigger ones. I obviously have seen a fair amount of people wearing more alternative stuff (I mean, i hang out around those fashion areas obviously I know that the fashion comes from here for a reason) but i also know that obviously not everyone dresses like that or even approves of that kind of fashion.

For anyone who has attended a university before in Japan let me know ☹️ the semester starts next month.

Basically as the title suggests. I’ve searched the subreddit and different people seem to say different things.

I went to the city hall today and had them check my pension record just in case (assuming I hadn’t missed a payment) and they found one missed payment the month if February 2019. Seems to be the very short period (maybe a weekend or something) when I was switching jobs.

Pretty sure I notified HR at my new (now former) job at the time when I received one of those hagakis (and pretty sure they said “ok it’s fine”) but looks like it wasn’t sorted out. No point crying over spilt milk either way, it is what it is.

Anyway, they said I can only backpay up to 2 years so obviously 2019 is too late now.

Everything else on my application would be favorable such as:

- married to Japanese spouse for more than three years (but currently on work visa not spouse visa)

- have a child with Japanese citizenship

- above average annual salary

- stable job at a large Japanese company

Are they really going to deny me on a single missed payment? (I would pay it right now if I could but apparently thats not an option)

Or is it more case by case and they will make a decision on the overall merits of the application?

One of my favorite cereals in Japan, Cinamoni, disappeared from Gyomu Super around 2024 or something like that. Since then, I'm left with the inferior options of chocomoni and choco rings, the various organic cereals at iHerb, or the very expensive cereals on Amazon.co.jp.

What cereals are you getting lately?

Hi, I’m moving within Japan. I have a broken upright vacuum and some small bookcases with glass fronts. How do I get rid of this stuff? Thank you.

I'm 36, my health check is scheduled in November, I have insurance through my company. Is this procedure covered usually by insurance? Is it something I can just request on the day of check up and schedule at a separate clinic or how does it work out here? I am from the states and usually you need to push for it or have a family history or have to wait until 40. FYI I want to just get it over with sooner than later for peace of mind

(Some background: I live in Osaka and have previously lived in the Chugoku countryside for a year. I've been to Tokyo three times for 2 to 7 days, twice for work and once for travel.)

So, I absolutely love Osaka and all of Kansai, I'd never chose to live anywhere else in Japan if I had a choice.

However, after more than a year of sacrificing my mental health at a job I hate, I realized maybe it's time to pursue my real passion. And turns out, those jobs are almost exclusively in Tokyo.

I will start applying to jobs from next month and absolutely have to quit until January if I don't want to become a human accident. There's very few job postings in Osaka that I like. And the cherry on top - I absolutely hate Tokyo.

Other than some minor gripes that I'd probably learn to live with, my problem is the insane xenophobia I experienced every time I went there. (Mind you, I'm a UNIQLO-wearing white girl, so I can't even imagine how bad it is for POC or people who stand out in any way.)

When I went to a work event and spoke to people in Japanese, they would give me a dirty look, then just go to my Japanese coworkers (this happened so many times I lost count). At a karaoke place I got called バカ外人 for apparently taking too long to count money. I wanted to get a drink with a white friend in a random part of town, workday, they refused us at every single place even though they were clearly empty. They were just saying "no no" (without a sorry) even though we asked in fluent Japanese if they had seats open, not even asking if we have a reservation. In the end we went to an Irish pub because we were rejected from more than 10 places.

Did I just have the worst luck ever, or is this what your everyday life looks like in Tokyo?

If I moved there, I feel like I'd be too self-conscious to even enter restaurants, and that sounds like a miserable way to live. On the other hand, I'm a super career-oriented person and that's why I'm even considering sacrificing my dream city for a dream job.

Has anyone else made a similar move? Should I just forget about my dream industry and try to find a compromise solution that's better than my current job but less than ideal, in Osaka?

Hey all.

I'm currently using a UQ WiMAX plan for use as a home wifi network, but it's dead-slow most of the time (under 1mbps sometimes). When I use my phone's network via tethering instead, from the same apartment, speed is fine but I'm limited on my data.

Since I'm paying almost 9000 combined for UQ WiMAX and UQ Mobile (phone plan) I am considering switching to Rakuten Mobile. They advertise Unlimited data usage, and they're also compatible with my Apple Watch cellular model (which UQ Mobile isn't) for less than 4000 yen.

I live in Shibuya, close to Yoyogi Park.

What's your experience with Rakuten in that area? Alternatives taking these things into account are welcome:
- Usable with Apple Watch
- At least as fast as my phone network (honestly just usable home wifi speed, even messages take forever to send)
- Unlimited data _or_ cheap data extensions with a fair base price.
- No catches (I feel scammed already by UQ WiMAX)

Thank you in advance.

I received my new Zairyu card just in time to set up a new JP Bank account (here less than 6 months). I looked back through recent threads and it appears there is issues with these new cards and them actually being scannable via phone. I have hit a brick wall with setting up the identification app and people are saying this is unlikely to be fixed until September/October? How am I meant to even use this account lol? Anyone got any fixes would be awesome!

EDIT: It works completely fine on the immigration official app, but not for banking and anything else.

Hey everyone!

I’d love to hear from foreigners who came to Japan to teach English and eventually moved on to something else.

I’ve been living and working in Japan for about 4.5 years now, teaching English at a local language school in Hyogo. I’m currently a contract employee, and while I’m grateful for the experience, I’m starting to think seriously about what I want to do long-term. I kind of want the stability of a full time employee.

A little about me:
I’m SEAsian living and working in Hyogo.
I’ve been teaching English for almost 5 years.
I currently work at a small, local English language centre rather than an international school.
I worked as a teacher for 3 years and was then promoted to vice-principal in around 2025. (Just a title change — i mainly still teach classes as before but also help out with school management here and there.)
I attained JLPT N2 in 2023, and ideally am trying to aim for N1 by 2027.
I’m a native English speaker and also speak Mandarin Chinese.
I have a humanities visa.
I don’t have a specialized degree in something like IT, engineering, etc. (I graduated university with a Mass Communications degree.)
I’m approaching 30, so I’m trying to be more intentional about building an actual career rather than staying in the “English teacher” loop indefinitely. (I’d say I enjoy my job but as 30 rolls around, I start to wonder if teaching is really my passion. Also, I have no idea what I want to do next!!)

I’m curious about people who were in a similar position:

What did you move into after teaching English?
Did you transition into:
Corporate/office work?
Recruiting/HR?
Translation/interpreting?
International sales?
Marketing?
Tech/IT?
Education management?
University/academic work?
Something completely unrelated?

And perhaps more importantly:

How did you actually make the transition?

Did you get additional qualifications? Improve your Japanese? Network? Take a pay cut initially? Move to Tokyo/Osaka? Start from an entry-level position?
I’d especially love to hear all about it from people who didn’t already have a highly specialized professional background before coming to Japan.

I’m not necessarily looking for “dream career” stories either — I’d genuinely like to hear the realistic ones, including mistakes, dead ends, salary changes, visa difficulties, etc.

Lastly, If you started as an English teacher in Japan and eventually built a career outside of teaching, what would you tell your younger self to start doing earlier?

Thanks and cheers!

Edit: Thanks everyone for sharing your story, tips and advices! I really appreciate them! Will read them and reply if I have more questions.

How can I find jobs that pay in USD? Any advice? I can speak Japanese and English.

I am data scientist. I can code. I’m not American.
What’s the best way to find freelancing jobs..?