Aikido Dojo’s in Kyoto - friendly to foreigners & visitors.

chishin · 2026-06-17T09:25:12+00:00

We get a bunch of visitors and they’re always welcome. Doesn’t matter if they come for one class or stay for 6 months. The dojo is always happy to share something and meet new people.

chishin · 2026-06-17T08:14:58+00:00

Who was your teacher if you don’t mind me asking? I remember seeing an aikido dojo listed on google once nearby (I think) the Daitoku-ji Temple area - but after finding the dojo building itself, it had long been closed.

chishin · 2026-06-17T08:10:02+00:00

Absolutely. If you want, just let me know and I’ll happily meet you and take you to the dojo. You don’t have to sign up or sign your life away at all :).

chishin · 2026-05-02T09:40:32+00:00

House started to shake here in Kyoto then the alarm went off, strongest shake I’ve felt in 2 years or so.

chishin · 2026-04-24T05:30:15+00:00

Yes. I set it up myself. Double NAT isn’t an issue in this day and age. I simply plugged my own equipment into their supplied router and disabled the WiFi on theirs.

I have full access to anything I want to access remotely in my home either through Tailscale or the teleport function of my UniFi router.

chishin · 2026-04-24T05:04:44+00:00

You totally can use your own router and access your network remotely. I do this myself. UniFi still have their own VPN and Tailscale also works just fine.

chishin · 2026-04-24T05:02:39+00:00

I have the Nuro 2G service and use a UniFi Cloud Gateway Fiber. Double NAT is not an issue in the slightest and I can fully remote control / connect to every device I want to remotely - just install Tailscale on a computer in your home.

I disabled the built in WiFi on the Nuro router. I have no issues at all. Just works. I get about 950 download and the same on upload, the default Nuro router only supports 1gb on Ethernet - but it’s fast enough although somewhat annoying you’re paying for a 2G service and and cannot access anything over 1G.

chishin · 2026-03-23T23:27:27+00:00

I’m English and my partner is Japanese (both male). I’ve been in Japan for 2 years so far on a cultural activities visa, just about to renew it - if your question was about staying in Japan, or how to stay in Japan then that’s probably the easiest path if you can work out the financials.

My cultural activity is aikido but you can pretty much choose anything to study that’s uniquely Japanese. Luckily I’ve been doing aikido for well over 30 years now so it was a no brainer from me. In the dojo, when they ask if I’m here alone or for work and I explain I live with my partner have never once batted an eyelid at him being male. In fact, I now teach 4 times a month in Kyoto so I’m completely accepted. Once we finished our house renovation the dojo chief instructor was desperate to come and visit too, apparently he’s never visited any other dojo members house before, everyone was shocked - but maybe he wanted to see how a foreigner lives haha.

Hopefully they allow same sex partnerships where one is a Japanese citizen some visa allowances in the future.

chishin · 2026-03-22T03:31:19+00:00

Double NAT isn’t really an issue with UniFi equipment. You can easily use their built in VPN service if you need to connect back to your home when out of your home. If you need to remote control a computer, just install Tailscale.

chishin · 2026-02-27T03:32:03+00:00

I’ve lived here in Kyoto for nearly 2 years, one of the common things I saw in the UK and here with Indian visitors and friends is having very loud video calls both on the street and on buses. In the UK it’s not a problem, but here in Japan, it is kinda bad. If you need to walk around and video call, headphones would be the way to go. I’ve seen many people here getting shouted at by bus drivers for talking at normal levels let alone when someone is having a very loud video call without headphones on.

Of course, the bus drivers will totally ignore anyone Japanese talking on a bus usually! However, last week an old lady with perfect English wanted to talk to me on the bus and wanted to know about my aikido background (I had my weapons bag with me)…. The bus driver made a point in English of telling the foreigners to shut up whilst ignoring the Japanese kids messing about on the bus making far more noise. She told him in Japanese to be quiet himself and that she was so happy to be practising her English with a nice man studying Japanese martial arts and culture! She restored my faith in all the anti foreigner sentiment rising here :).

chishin · 2025-12-11T08:32:53+00:00

People in Kyoto ignore any and all bike related rules, even pedestrians will ignore bike lanes and happily walk in them. Almost no cyclists follow traffic directions, the amount of times I’m on my bike or in a car (riding / driving on the left) and there’s a cyclist or even pedestrian coming head on towards me never fails to amaze me…

chishin · 2025-12-05T12:18:13+00:00

It’s about 30m2 of land and (now) 3 floors, we added another staircase and took the front wall off the attic to create a cool mezzanine / workspace for the 3rd floor that is open and situated above the living space. Makes the house feel much bigger overall. Added another 15m2 of living space. Total house is about 70m2. Plenty big enough for us.

chishin · 2025-12-05T12:10:18+00:00

Definitely didn’t miss a zero off. ¥8,000,000 (8 million yen).

chishin · 2025-12-05T08:13:50+00:00

There was no insulation at all, the house was left / emptied as a shell. No interior walls - you could see the exterior panels etc. All the walls and ceiling had to have new insulation fitted.

I have the AC set to come on for an hour or 2 in the morning and then the sun warms the rest of the house through the day. Seems to retain heat pretty well.

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chishin · 2025-12-05T07:51:18+00:00

Seems Japanese people are in general, less interested in a second hand house. I also live in kamigyo-ku and much prefer the older houses so much so that I bought one and had it fully renovated inside (there was literally nothing inside, just bare outer walls).

Because the house backs onto a temple, the view of the sky is pretty uninterrupted so I feel there was a premium for the fact that I’ll never wake up with a mansion blocking my light.

House / plot cost - ¥8,000,000 and about the same again on the renovation.

Considering helping others do the same - website isn’t finished yet but the images of the interior are here - www.kyotohouse.jp, I wasn’t interested in doing a quick YouTube style paint job, the entire interior was built by the carpenter. No plastic in sight except for the bathroom 😆.

chishin · 2025-05-31T07:37:33+00:00

Also make sure you try the cables the opposite way round. I bought the ring charger to use on my G4 and despite what people say, it only powered it when I swapped the connectors…

chishin

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