I moved to Japan in March, and had spend the last 7 months in Japan. While it was absolutely wonderful, especially taking advantage of the Japanese government’s travel subsidies, when the government announced that mid to long term residence could leave and re-enter the country starting October 1, I started plotting for a trip to another country to see friends that I hadn’t see in a while. On top of that priority list was Korea for various reason.
Author: michael
Quick updates to Japan’s Go To program
Several updates to Japan’s Go To campaign, which offers up to 50% off travel.
First, Sapporo and Osaka have been removed as eligible destinations. Supposedly for 3 weeks from 11/24/202, no new reservations will be accepted, and existing Go To reservations will be cancelled and refunded.
Next, only up to 7 nights of a stay will be discounted. This is to prevent usage for long-term stays that aren’t travel such as business stays.
Tips and Tricks for Japan’s Go To Campaigns
UPDATE 10/13: Funding for Go To has been restored back to 14000 yen/night per person in discounts, and the region coupon remain at the same limit of 6000 yen/night per person.
UPDATE 10/11: It seems like Go To is running out of money, the maximum you can get off the hotel rate is 35% up to 3500 yen/night per person, but you can still get 15% up to 6000 yen/night per person in regional coupons.
Due to coronavirus severely impacting Japan’s tourism industry, the Japanese government kicked off various campaigns titled Go To stimulate domestic travel while tourists from outside Japan were not allowed in the country.
Moving to Japan during a Pandemic Part 2: Finding a (Software) Job
Previously, I wrote about my motivations for moving to Japan. Here, we will talk about how I found a job that would let me stay in Japan.
There are various ways to obtain a visa to stay in Japan. The subreddit r/movingtojapan is a great resource especially their visa wiki. If you are lucky and have Japanese citizenship or are married to a Japanese national, well, you’re lucky and can ignore all of this and move onto the practical aspects when you are on the ground. Another path that might be good, especially if you aren’t confident in your language skills, is to go into a full-time Japanese language school for at least 6 months (minimum 6 months to get a student visa), then apply for jobs on the ground while in school.
Q&A with RapidTravelChai about moving to Japan!
As a followup to my post about moving to Japan part 1, I went live with RapidTravelChai talking about the motivations and the whole process.
You can watch the recording on YouTube. I promise a followup writing about the job search and move process soon, I have just been really busy traveling all over Japan! You can follow my adventures on Instagram.
Moving to Japan during a pandemic, part 1
This is not entirely travel related, but it’s something I’ve been meaning to write. In March of 2020, I moved to Japan, right before the coronavirus pandemic really hit either Japan or the United States. Moving here was something I’ve intended on for a long time, and I maintain that it was one of the best decision in my life, despite complications from the pandemic. This will be a multi-part post, from the background motivations, to the processing moving there, and then practical tips for others making the move.
Lugging your stuff around
TL;DR the lugg app is easy, reasonably priced, insured way to move. Download the app here and use promo code LU765311 for $10 off.
In preparation for moving to Japan, I needed to move all the things I wasn’t sending over to my parents’ place. So began the usual process of messaging a bunch of moving companies on Yelp and Thumbtack.
The annoying part of this is they will quote an hourly rate, but it’s hard to tell what extras are being charged and compare them reasonably, such as base fees, gas charges, whether or not the time to drive to the pickup or drive back from the destination is charged, whether you will be charged double drive time or not, or material costs. After asking a bunch of companies, I was getting quoted anywhere between $240-$450 dollars. To compare, the last time I did this with slightly more stuff, it ended up being around $400 dollars. Furthermore, scheduling is all done through the conversation, and you don’t always know whether a company is available or not, and it’s hard to control what time they come.
DEM Flyers guides to Osaka and Bangkok!
Hot off my recent trip, I have a few new recommendation guides! I’ve been to Bangkok a couple times before, and combined experience from those trips with some new research. We’re always open to suggestions though!
This was perhaps my 3rd time to Osaka, but I really never got a good feel for the lay of the land until this time. I spend 2.5 days wandering around to the best restaurants, bars, and cool places to see, so I think I have a decent handle on it now!
Don’t use JUMP bikes/scooters
TL;DR the reservation system is absolutely unreliable, and without the Uber Pass, is just not worth it.
I’ve been using JUMP bikes and scooters with the Uber Pass for a few months now, and the free 30 minutes a day absolutely made it worth it for me. There were a couple of issues though. Frequently I would encounter bikes with non-working e-assists. Even more annoying though, I would go up to bikes and scooters (I would check that they were available on the app), try to reserve them, and get hit with mysterious errors that they weren’t reservable. The issues seemed to have gone away over time.
Prevent airplane mode on Android from turning off WiFi, Bluetooth
With the advent of Bluetooth earphones, and in-flight WiFi, I’ve had multiple experiences of having my music listening and WiFi connection interrupted by switching on airplane mode. Fortunately, there is a trick to keep airplane mode from turning off those services!
Here are the full instructions courtesy of Doug Lynch on XDA Developers, but I’ll summarize the steps.
The setting for which radios turn off in airplane mode is controlled by a global system setting, which can be modified using the Android Debug Bridge, or adb. To connect to the Android Debug Bridge, you must enable Developer Mode.