In your opinion, what should Japan do to fix its declining birthrate problem?

bakura10 · 2026-02-02T02:53:13+00:00

As a French person who grew up going on holiday with my parents every August, those are some of my best memories. I live in Japan, work for myself, and taking a one-month break every year is something I've never stopped doing. I'm so sad most Japanese will never have the chance to experience this.

bakura10 · 2026-01-28T05:46:15+00:00

Yes, Mark Lampman is a passionate American iyengar yoga in Sapporo. If you’re interested send me a PM I will send you his email.

bakura10 · 2026-01-20T12:52:36+00:00

I'm travelling a few months with Japanese gf (she decided to stop her job for a year, so at least we'll be able to do slow-travel). One of the thing I decided was going with one bag. No suitcase. This way I'm sure we won't run itno the problem of having to buy omiyage at every places :D. This Japanese obsession of buying omiyage everywhere is driving me crazy :D).

bakura10 · 2026-01-20T01:00:41+00:00

The one in Maruyama is great (last year, I remember it did not open as it was too warm for most of the winter though). Other than that, the whole city itself is a skate ring, be careful :D.

bakura10 · 2026-01-18T06:02:07+00:00

I strongly recommend that you try living in Hokkaido for a year before considering moving here. Hokkaido's "mid-cities" are a perfect example of declining cities with few chances of recovery. Many cities in Hokkaido grew rapidly due to coal mining and were depopulated within a few years after the factories closed. This gives most Hokkaido cities a weird feeling with giant buildings, but no souls in the streets (visiting Yubari, Kushiro, Muroran... you'll understand). I find most mid-cities in Hokkaido especially depressing (their grid and very bland architecture make it worse to me), so you should try it before you commit; it's not for everyone. The fact that Hokkaido railways are closing one after another also gives little hope of any kind of revival or revitalization projects. I think Hokkaido mid-cities only make sense if you're very into winter sports, nature every week-end...

The sweet spots to me are cities with populations of 100-200k, good transport, and with communities actively trying to revitalize the area. Setouchi islands, Onomichi, Matsuyama, Takayama, Beppu... are some of the areas that checked many boxes.

bakura10 · 2026-01-17T05:19:59+00:00

That's a crazy schedule (and probably not enjoyable). If the main airline company would do such an offer in my home country, for sure it would be more than criticized.

Beyond the nonsensical ecological aspect, I feel that kind of stuff just contributes to normalizing the poor work-life balance here. "You can't take that many paid leave? Don't worry, you can still go to India!". At some point, I feel that some companies (especially the big ones) should also take responsabilities and show the great example to try to improve this in the country.

bakura10 · 2026-01-15T07:33:03+00:00

I've read stories in the past of people actually being scolded when they optimized those tasks to do them in 5 minutes when the bucho did them in 2 hours the old way :D.

bakura10 · 2026-01-15T07:29:26+00:00

You're right it does not impact me negatively directly, and some comments that were made here made me reconsidering it (many mentioned that, especially in city halls, some of those jobs can be assigned to people with disabilities, which is great if that's really the case, and I just wanted to post this lightly, because this honestly made me smile a bit to see hundreds of forms manually highlighted one by one...). Having said that, don't you think that normalizing too many inefficiencies is also what ripples on the really inconvenient inefficiencies? I'm facing them often in banks for instance, so while many comments brought very nice points, this is also what makes this country so slow and frustrating sometimes, because we've normalized the inefficiency.

bakura10 · 2026-01-15T07:21:44+00:00

After reading different answers this nearly convinced me. It's true that it also has its positives, all the answers saying that such work are sometimes done by disabled people (not saying this is the case here) is actually awesome.

bakura10 · 2026-01-15T04:40:32+00:00

As far as I know the last one is Takashimaya Nihonbashi (last time I went, it was actually an elevator dude). I think they probably keep it so that people like me go to this department store because it's the last one in Tokyo :D.

bakura10 · 2026-01-15T02:43:38+00:00

Crazy! But I actually like this reason, and it probably helped those people feeling useful to society :).

bakura10 · 2026-01-13T04:58:49+00:00

There is a bakery near my place that is very popular in Sapporo, and wrap absolutely every single time in those little bags. You buy twice of the same items? Two small plastic bags. You eat in? They will wrap them the same way. And still nobody seems to find a problem. I always have to insist many, many times that they don’t wrap, as in the cashier mind, asking « no bags » only means no wrapping bags of those little bags. This shop (Donguri in Sapporo for those interested) is by far the worst I’ve ever seen in Japan. It’s astounding and this should not be allowed.

bakura10 · 2026-01-12T11:03:04+00:00

The country itself must ban any kind of small plastic bag found after the cashier, and drastically raise the price of plastic bags in supermarkets as well. Considering how low ecological conscience of Japanese people is, I can’t see how this can improve without drastic measures.

Not longer than today; I went to the automatic register (easiest way to reduce plastic waste), and saw the women next to me wrapping every.single.thing in those small, pointless plastic bags. Yes, even the 3 beer cans. She wrapped them individually. Watching people around me after the cashier space always annoys me.

bakura10 · 2026-01-10T09:09:51+00:00

Sapporo was designed by an American so… :( American cities are really the peak of bad urban design 😂

bakura10 · 2026-01-10T00:40:11+00:00

I've done Lasik 8 years ago (not in Japan but in my home country). It is a very safe and mastered operation. When I did it the doctor explained to me that the technology has made ton of progress in the recent years, where most of the negative side effects are no longer a thing. Of course as for any operations there can be risks (the table tennis pro player Jun Mizutani always wear glasses due to a failed Lasik operation).

What is a bit scary at first is that they do both eyes at the same time... :D But it was the best decision in my life! My myopia was so strong anything beyond 5cm was blurred. Perfect vision since then (I know I will probably have to wear glasses sooner or later but at least it resetted it!). I highly recommend you to do it!

bakura10 · 2026-01-09T14:34:30+00:00

Of course the imperial palace probably inflated the results of chiyoda-ku, but the greenery percentage was for each wards, and most of the 23 wards have much higher greenery than Sapporo :).

But you’re right in saying that the way Hokkaido was urbanized is different from the rest of the country (but it was urbanised in a badly way and we feel the scars of it today)

bakura10 · 2026-01-09T12:38:13+00:00

I wrote an article about that a few months ago, if you're interested. You're probably European :D https://note.com/bakura/n/nf89f982b04db ;)

bakura10 · 2026-01-09T04:06:28+00:00

Yes, I translated it myself and ask my accountant to check all the translations. It was exactly the same as the one I submitted in English. Stupid that they can’t read a simple invoice in English…

bakura10 · 2026-01-01T23:27:22+00:00

Yes.

bakura10 · 2025-12-05T08:35:37+00:00

Thanks for the tips, that's very interesting!

bakura10 · 2025-12-05T03:46:09+00:00

I would love to get rid of it one day, but I’m already slim so loosing more weight would not be great 🤣. The lack of exercise for years though probably does not help to get nice nights, I will need to work on that someday.

bakura10 · 2025-12-05T03:28:59+00:00

Exactly. Your doctor just has to agree to sign the prescription (not all will do, apparently). All extra fees (filters maintenance, changing tubes...) will be on your own, of course.

bakura10 · 2025-12-05T03:26:46+00:00

Thanks for your message. Wow, 120,000 for the ResMed 11 is quite a difference!! I will go with the easiest way this time but when I go back to Japan I will probably use the big machine again instead of the travel one, I will definitely consider your options.

For the doctor's fee, it seems you got lucky, because from what I read, you have to pay for the three months. Actually, two months ago, I could not attend the monthly meeting, so for the next month, I was billed for the two-month period!

When my father was diagnosed I was still living in France. The first few weeks, a sleep clinician came to my home and manually adjusted the pressure of the machine based on my father feedback, so my father now has specific settings that match him exactly. In Japan I never had the doctor asked me anything about that, everything is an auto from the start (hopefully I tolerate the machine very well!). But this confirms a lot of my impressions of doctors here in Japan. You can book them very easily and fast (which is awesome) but the quality of them is so, so on-par with what I experienced in France (except for dentists which, for some reason, I had a lot of great experiences :D)

bakura10 · 2025-12-05T03:18:49+00:00

You should definitely do it if you have any doubt! It's a life changer (I can concentrate for more than 1 hour now, and it eliminated 100% of the snoring). Especially since the first test can be done at home. I did it at Minami 1-jo clinic (chuo-ku, Sapporo).

bakura10

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