TheManInJapan

Sending cash (and paying your dorm bill) with an ATM

The hitotsubashi international village dorms are really cheap (thanks to being subsidized), but you still have to pay about $150 per month. Here’s how I managed to do that. First, I’d get a monthly bill in my mailbox: The amount to pay is here: The bank transfer info is at the bottom: It would have [...]

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Getting cash from the ATM

Cash is important in Japan. You almost never use a credit card. Soon after I arrived, exchange students staying more than one semester were advised to open a Japanese bank account. (They gave detailed instructions about this.) But I only signed up for one semester, so I’ve been accessing my American bank via ATMs. First, [...]

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McDonald’s Golf

While you’re in Japan, I encourage you to play a spirited game of McDonald’s Golf. You get one point every time you eat at McDonald’s, and just like golf, you want to have the lowest score possible. I think I’ve done pretty well, but sadly my score is non-zero. This led me to discover the [...]

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Japan Time

Random tiny tips about time: Japan is all one time zone, and shares the same time zone as North and South Korea Japan is normally 14 hours ahead of my native Chicago. But there’s no such thing as daylight savings time in Japan, so recently Chicago just dropped back an hour relative to Japan, so [...]

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What to do if you lose your bike key

In Japan, your bike is very important. So don’t lose your bike key, ok? First off, you should have a spare key someplace. They usually give you two or three keys when you buy the bike. I had two keys. But then I lost one, and then I lost the other. Which was pretty dumb [...]

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Alien Registration Card

If you’re in Japan on a non-tourist visa, you need an Alien Registration Card. (If you’re an actual sci-fi alien in Japan, please come visit me before I head back to America.) You have to get one with 14 days of arriving, and if you ever change addresses you need to get it updated within [...]

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Health Insurance and Seeing the Doctor

If you plan to be in Japan for more than a couple of months, I strongly suggest you sign up for the national health insurance plan. Like most government-sponsored health plans in the world, this one puts the United States to shame. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and it’s effective. (And yes, I’ve actually filed a [...]

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Conbini (convenience store)

“Conbini” is the Japanese word for “convenience store”. Conbinis are all over the place. One popular chain is Lawson. Here’s a brief tour: Conbinis often have a couple things that American convenience stores don’t. Namely: If you buy something online, you can have it shipped to a local conbini instead of your home address, and [...]

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Odd Thing #13: A place for pets

Sometimes, near a row of trash cans, you’ll see something like this: But despite appearances, this is not a convenient place to stash your dog, cat or parakeet. “Pet” in this case derives from “petroleum”, as in oil, which is the main ingredient in standard plastic bottles. So “pet” means “plastic bottles”. Thus, the inside [...]

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Noodle Shop

Ah, the noodle shop. Classic Japan. First, you need to find a shop. They’re all over, especially near the train stations. Japanese food places are often denoted by these big lamp-things (chyouchin), as well as this sort of short curtain-thing by your head (I’m still not sure what it’s called) In that picture you can [...]

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