Guides
Once you have keys, the day-to-day. How to pay a utility bill at the konbini, how to keep mold off the closet wall, how packages work, what changes once you stop being a hotel guest.
May 7, 2026NEW
Most foreigner guides assume you sign a 24-month NTT or NURO contract and wait 3 to 8 weeks for installation. On a 90-day stay, none of that fits. Three other paths exist; the speeds, lock-in, and failure modes are different for each.
Read guideMay 5, 2026NEW
Most Tokyo coworking guides rank for the salaryman buying a year of dedicated desk. This one ranks for the tech employee who lands at Haneda on a 60-day project, needs a desk on Monday, and has no interest in signing a 12-month contract on a stay that ends in July.
Read guideApril 28, 2026NEW
The Japan digital nomad visa got real in early 2024 and the threads about it are loud. Most of what people argue about online does not matter. A few things matter more than the threads admit. Here is the order I would put them in if you were sitting across from me.
Read guideApril 27, 2026NEW
Tokyo typhoons follow a published schedule of warnings. The 気象庁 names the storm, the ward office names the evacuation centre, and your operator names the contact line. None of this is improvised. Read the rules once and you stop losing sleep on the 36-hour window.
Read guideApril 26, 2026NEW
Your first Tokyo electric, gas, and water bills arrive on paper. Each carries a barcode the konbini clerk scans at the register. No bank account, no app, no credit card needed. The slip is the system; the receipt is your proof.
Read guideApril 25, 2026NEW
If you're staying 60 to 90 days, the big three carriers are the wrong answer. They want a juminhyo and a 24-month plan. The real options are foreigner-friendly monthly SIMs, data-only eSIMs, and an airport pickup desk that costs more than shipping.
Read guideApril 20, 2026NEW
A 90-day tenant is neither tourist nor resident. The building treats you as a temporary neighbor with the same elevator, the same trash room, and a shorter window to learn the rules. The greetings are a system; this is how it works.
Read guideApril 16, 2026
Two trips before the long one, and one of them in deep winter. The summer version gets all the airtime. The January version answers a different question: would you actually survive February in a 22m² apartment with a wall-mounted heater?
Read guideApril 9, 2026
Permanent-resident trash guides teach seven categories. On a 30-day stay, three of them never apply to you. The set that does is smaller, the calendar is shorter, and the building rule decides more than the ward rule.
Read guideApril 9, 2026
You arrive at 9pm. The bag is on the floor. The kettle is on the counter. Then you open the upper cabinet and find out what the next thirty days of dinners are actually going to be.
Read guideApril 9, 2026
Eight Tokyo trips made me feel like I knew the city. Then I lived there for 90 days and discovered I knew the visitor's version. The resident version starts on day five, when the konbini food gets old and your laundry stops fitting in a hotel sink.
Read guideApril 6, 2026
If you're moving to Tokyo with a pet for a 60-day bridge stay, the listing page often won't tell you whether pets are allowed. Most operators answer that question by email. This is what to expect, what to ask, and where to look first.
Read guideMarch 28, 2026
Carriers in Tokyo do not leave packages at the door, and they do not slip them under the building gate. They knock once, fail, and leave a paper slip. The slip is the entire system. Learn to read it and the rest is mechanical.
Read guideMarch 22, 2026
Tokyo treats vegetarian, vegan, and halal eating as a logistics problem, not a menu problem. On a 30-to-90-day stay you'll figure this out by day twelve. The friend version: skip the restaurant search, build a kitchen-first working set, and use the city you already booked.
Read guideMarch 19, 2026
Spouses and children can accompany the digital nomad visa holder under a separate status called Notification 54. They share the principal's six-month clock, but their schools, healthcare, and bank-account paths are not the same. Here are three places where the dependent path is different from the principal's.
Read guideFebruary 25, 2026
A 60-day Tokyo stay puts you over Japan's 1-month personal-import threshold by definition. The form to apply for is yakkan shōmei. The office that issues it for Narita and Haneda arrivals sits in Saitama, and a small set of medications customs refuses anyway, certificate or not.
Read guideFebruary 19, 2026
A full 宅配ボックス is not a missed delivery; it is a redirect. Yamato, Sagawa, and Japan Post each route the package through a different recovery path. Pick one before the slip lands or you pay the cost in trips.
Read guideFebruary 10, 2026
Tokyo in August is 33°C at 9am and 78% humidity at 11pm. The friend version of what to test before booking: which units cool, which units don't, and what to do if you're already in one that's losing.
Read guideFebruary 8, 2026
The hotel stops being the apartment somewhere around day twelve. By day thirty, you have a bakery, a dry cleaner, and a route through the small park that saves four minutes. The shape of the city around you changes.
Read guideFebruary 7, 2026
If you treat a 60-to-90-day Tokyo stay with kids as a school-search problem, you will be looking at the wrong thing. The gate is residency status, not seat availability. Here is which option each program asks for, and what actually opens for a family on bridge housing.
Read guideFebruary 5, 2026
On a 90-day Tokyo stay, National Health Insurance is closed to most guests because the ward office cannot issue a juminhyo. Travel insurance fills the gap on paper but breaks in three places: chronic-condition flare-ups, hospital admission deposits, and inpatient stays past the day cap. Each one has a fix.
Read guideJanuary 19, 2026
The kotatsu lives in every Tokyo winter listicle. For a 90-day stayer, the math isn't quite what the listicles imply, and a small ceramic heater wins more of the winter than you'd expect. This is what late January looks like with each.
Read guideJanuary 6, 2026
Tokyo buildings are not heated as a system. Each room runs its own aircon, sometimes a kerosene heater, often a kotatsu. The same closed-window habits that keep heat in also grow mold on the closet wall. Both problems share one fix: airflow.
Read guideDecember 25, 2025
From mid-June to mid-July, Tokyo's indoor humidity averages 75 percent and mold blooms on the closet wall in eight to ten days. Operators rarely brief midterm guests because they assume locals know. The fixes are dull and routine. Skipping them costs a ¥40,000 cleaning charge at move-out.
Read guideDecember 23, 2025
The Japan digital nomad visa is six months and does not extend. It does not convert into an Engineer visa from inside Japan. The pathway out is a flight, not a form. Start the new application around month three, or you sit in your home country burning savings while a Certificate of Eligibility processes.
Read guideDecember 18, 2025
The Japanese digital nomad visa is one paragraph of 告示第53号. Translate that paragraph and most of the FAQ blogs stop being confusing. The text names the activity, the cap on duration, and the things you cannot do. Read it once and the rest is mechanical.
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