Content Marketer | +6 Years in Japan
A driver spent a week cruising Hokkaido and called it the most relaxing road trip of his life. Another took a mountain route from Kusatsu to Kanazawa and described it as “like being dialled into an F1 race car.” Both were experienced drivers. Both were in Japan. Both are right. Honestly, driving in Japan is
People who went to Japan five years ago will tell you cash is king. People who went last month will tell you they barely touched a note. Both are telling the truth, they just had different trips. The honest answer for 2026 is this: Japan has changed significantly. Most major establishments in cities now accept
Japan exports two things that the rest of the world cannot seem to get enough of: technology and philosophy. The technology is obvious. The philosophy is subtler, but arguably more influential. Words like ikigai, wabi-sabi, and kaizen have migrated into business books, wellness retreats, design studios, and everyday conversation far beyond Japan’s borders. They appear
You have been studying Japanese for months. Your grammar is solid. Your vocabulary is growing. And then a Japanese colleague says 「七転び八起き」 and everyone in the room nods knowingly while you smile and nod along, understanding not a single thing of what just happened. This is the idiom problem. And it is one of the
A New Zealander moves to Tokyo, hops on a bike, and immediately realises that everything they knowknew about cycling is useless. Roads are narrower. Sidewalks are fuller. Mamacharis barrel around blind corners with toddlers in the back seat and zero regard for oncoming traffic. Elderly women cycle the wrong way down one-way streets at a
If you’ve been in Japan long enough, you’ve probably wondered whether going freelance is worth it. More money, more freedom, no boss breathing down your neck. It sounds obvious until you realize the system here works very differently from back home. Japan now has roughly 13 million freelancers, a market worth over ¥20 trillion. And
May 3 is one of those days in Japan where the trains are packed, the tourist spots are swarming, and your regular convenience store might be operating on a skeleton schedule. If you are living in Japan or planning a trip during late April and early May, you will run directly into Constitution Memorial Day.
In early 2025, Tokyo police sent a hundred officers to raid the offices of Moody, Japan’s biggest job-quitting agency. Its founder, Tanimoto Shinji, was arrested. His crime? Helping people quit their jobs. That sounds absurd until you understand what quitting a job in Japan can actually look like. There are employers who have locked employees
You need to prove your English for Japan, but which test do you actually take? Both TOEFL and IELTS are accepted here, and both measure the same four skills: reading, listening, writing, and speaking. The problem is that a generic comparison doesn’t tell you anything useful. What tells you something useful is knowing your specific
Most people go to Tokyo. Kyoto. Osaka. That’s fine. Those cities are great. But if you’ve already done that route, or you’re the type who hates crowds, Japan is hiding something from you. Misty gorges. Glowing rice terraces. Rivers so clear they look fake. Towns frozen in the 1800s. And almost nobody is there. This
If you’ve been searching for a clear, honest breakdown of how remote work actually functions in Japan as a foreigner, the visas, the job types, the taxes, the lifestyle trade-offs, you’ve landed in the right place. Japan has quietly become one of the most desirable countries in the world for remote workers, offering safety, world-class
If you’ve ever tried to build a professional network in Japan the same way you would back home, handing out business cards at events, firing off LinkedIn connection requests, jumping straight into your pitch, well, you’ve probably noticed that something feels off. That’s because networking in Japan operates on an entirely different set of rules,