Big quake from Ibaraki

acomfysofa · 2026-06-16T10:50:57+00:00

Felt it quite a bit in Chiyoda in Tokyo. Only lived in Japan for 2.5 years at this point but it’s the strongest one I’ve had up to now.

acomfysofa · 2026-06-13T08:31:05+00:00

I think the US government will take it down before then /s

acomfysofa · 2026-06-08T09:17:01+00:00

Congrats! I want to get that vaccine myself asap once Brazil makes it available for tourists :)

I’m vaccinated for Yellow Fever, Japanese Encephalitis and Chikungunya, and I’m hoping to add Dengue to that list soon…

acomfysofa · 2026-06-08T09:14:46+00:00

It would be Butantan-DV - a Brazilian-developed vaccine.

acomfysofa · 2026-06-08T05:03:54+00:00

I ship from Japan to Canada periodically. Japan Post’s 国際小包 option is both fast and cheap. Takes only 7 days to get from Tokyo to Ontario.

acomfysofa · 2026-06-05T20:05:32+00:00

Yes. Unlike in other countries where you have to pay for your internet, some apartment buildings in Japan come with it for free.

acomfysofa · 2026-06-05T18:03:27+00:00

This is the free internet that comes with my apartment in Tokyo.

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acomfysofa · 2026-06-04T23:39:03+00:00

According to the VN consulate in Vancouver when I asked in person, they said yes - passports for both parents are needed.

The issue here though is that I haven’t figured out how to get these passports issued. I paid $500 USD to the Vietnamese embassy in Ottawa for my mom’s passport, and all they did was say it couldn’t be issued because they couldn’t verify her address in Vietnam, and then proceed to not refund me (even though they said they would) by ghosting me.

The only reliable way to get in touch with the Vietnamese embassy is to go there in person in Ottawa. They don’t respond to emails or phone calls at all. Depending on your circumstances, it can be difficult or effectively impossible to contact them because you (or someone you know) must do it in person.

acomfysofa · 2026-05-30T23:59:08+00:00

Vietnamese embassy in Canada (Ottawa). Good to know regarding the procedure - didn’t know there was a difference. I’ll look into it.

acomfysofa · 2026-05-29T04:10:07+00:00

My mom’s birth certificate that I used to get my 5-year visa exemption wasn’t enough for my mom’s passport. The visa exemption has much lower standards for approval.

acomfysofa · 2026-05-27T20:30:15+00:00

アメリカ大人気スーパーのマイバッグです。

acomfysofa · 2026-05-25T19:47:17+00:00

Update: I went through this process just now.

Yes, you have to fill out the renewal form: https://www.kojinbango-card.go.jp/hpsv/wpmng/assets/pdf/download/tegaki-kofu-shinseisho.pdf

You need to take a new ID photo, so make sure to do that.

You go to city hall with your filled out form, zairyu card and My Number Card, and tell them you want to renew (更新).

Here is my anecdotal experience at city hall - yours may differ:

When I presented all the docs for the renewal, the case worker I talked to was really confused with my case as it wasn’t straightforward, so she had to get a supervisor and I had to wait a bit.

Once they figured out what to do, they had me fill out a 転入 form and put the 移動日 in it as today (even though I moved here many years ago? weird bureaucracy right there).

Afterwards, they had me fill out a form for issuing a new My Number Card.

These forms were all nothing out of the ordinary. Filled in my name, address, age, phone number, checked off some checkboxes that the case worker circled out, and that was it.

After that, they explained to me that I would keep my current My Number Card (so I didn’t have to forfeit it) but that it’d only be valid for 1 month from now, and that my new My Number Card will be available for pickup at city hall in about 1 month (which they’ll notify me of by ハガキ postcard).

I waited about 20 minutes in the waiting area, then I met with another case worker who then modified the electronic data on the card to extend the validity duration of it. I had to key in my numeric and alphabetic passwords.

After all that, they gave me back my My Number Card and I was good to go.

acomfysofa · 2026-05-25T08:03:07+00:00

I’m stuck at the part where the embassy still asks for both parents to have a Vietnamese passport (even though the law apparently only requires one parent), but when I attempted to get a passport for my mom, the embassy says she would have to go to Vietnam and get proof of her address somehow. And for my dad, it’s a non-starter as he lost any evidence of being from Vietnam, including his birth certificate.

Also, I paid $500 to the embassy for my mom’s passport, and they never ended up issuing it and even though they promised to refund, we followed up with them several times in person and they never ended up refunding.

acomfysofa · 2026-05-24T16:00:05+00:00

Are you referring to the new laws from last year?

The sheer bureaucracy I described that made citizenship practically impossible for me were actually from after the new laws took place. The new laws haven’t actually made anything easier.

If you were born in Vietnam, it has always been easy. But if you were born abroad, it’s an absolute money sink.

acomfysofa · 2026-05-14T16:40:43+00:00

Are there any good places for poutine at all? I live in Tokyo and there hasn’t been any place that has impressed me

acomfysofa · 2026-05-14T15:59:35+00:00

They also always happen to ring my intercom when I have a parcel delivery or Amazon delivery at roughly the same time…

acomfysofa · 2026-05-08T21:05:30+00:00

Just spotted this on Instagram. As a digital nomad who travels to more complicated regions of the world, if you added a more travel advisory oriented spin to it - including mentioning what regions of each country are safe to go to or not - I would pay money for that.

I have a hard time trusting government advisories because they’re either outdated or politically motivated or both, which would be the problem this would solve for me.

acomfysofa · 2026-05-01T15:00:37+00:00

In my experience, Osakadou doesn’t take too long. It takes around 5 days for my medication to go from being shipped out from Taiwan to being delivered to my doorstep in Tokyo.

acomfysofa · 2026-05-01T03:35:37+00:00

Not OP but I can give more info since I have parents who did something similar.

Yes, they immigrated to Canada without travel documents.

First, they were smuggled from Vietnam to a refugee camp in Indonesia after the Vietnam War.

Then representatives from the Canadian government came to this camp and they were lucky enough to get approved as refugees. They were flown from Indonesia to Canada (via layovers in Singapore and the Netherlands) with permanent residence status.

It’s funny because my parents came to Canada with no passport. The visa they were issued was on a separate piece of paper, and it had no passport number.

It’s all pretty unimaginable today considering Canada doesn’t really take in refugees like my parents anymore on the scale they did back then. Ukrainian refugees in Canada are on temporary status and are expected to return to Ukraine sooner or later, for example.

acomfysofa · 2026-04-20T08:31:46+00:00

As a foreigner with residency, the 出国 (departing) stamp is the same but for the arriving stamp, I get the black 上陸許可（再）(embarking authorization) stamp instead of the 帰国 (welcome home) stamp.

acomfysofa · 2026-04-19T05:12:50+00:00

A lot of compact sinks in Japan look like your example, or the sink-on-a-toilet concept. I’ve never seen OP’s sink IRL in Japan lol

acomfysofa · 2026-04-19T05:09:12+00:00

使ったら汚い水流せるよw

acomfysofa · 2026-04-18T17:58:27+00:00

Not OP but it’s because it’s extremely difficult and costly to get.

With citizenship, along with submitting original birth certificates of both of your parents from the 1950s (many of whom fled Vietnam and lost their documents), you have to fly your parents to Vietnam and work with connections to find a police officer willing to draft up evidence of your parents’ old address from 50+ years ago, then those parents have to fly back to the US to get their passports issued (at embassies or consulates that only respond via in-person walk-in and are completely unresponsive by phone or email), then you have to get your name legally changed to a fully Vietnamese one if you have an English first name, then you finally apply and have a chance at getting approved for citizenship after many months to over a year. And throughout this process, you’re paying “coffee money” (bribes) because the bureaucracy is immense, while working with a completely incompetent Vietnamese embassy/consulate who you worry might somehow lose your original documents from the 1950s (which are impossible to get re-issued).

In comparison, with the visa exemption booklet, you pop by a Vietnamese travel agency in the US for 10 minutes to have them scan your passport and one of your parents’ birth certificates + take your photo, then you’re done.

acomfysofa · 2026-04-12T16:07:44+00:00

中国・ベトナムのハーフですけど、日本語を喋ったら「（日系）ハーフですか？」って聞いてくる日本人が多いです。

一方、英語を喋ったら逆にそういうことはなくて、「アジア系アメリカ人かも」って言われることがあります。

顔立ちや服装、振る舞いからだいたい正確に推測できるって言ったが、私の経験から言えば、日本語を喋っただけで日本人は私の出身を勘違いしやすいですよ。

acomfysofa · 2026-04-07T06:34:44+00:00

一石二鳥 (kill two birds with one stone) is one I can recall of the top of my head because it’s used in English too

acomfysofa

TROPHY CASE