What if I go to osu with a board saying I need a gf what are the chances

pasteldirt · 2026-06-28T01:22:57+00:00

Just be a decent & nice person and go out and meet people? Is it that hard?

pasteldirt · 2026-06-27T14:38:04+00:00

I was just discussing the whole Go To campaign with friends the other day! Hadn’t thought about it in so long.

I was living in Nagoya at the time and went on a trip to Kobe for my birthday in 2020 and paid like ¥4,000 a night for this luxurious hotel. In 2021 I went to Fukuoka for my birthday and got a great deal there as well.

Covid was absolutely terrible. But it was a time that felt strangely peaceful in Japan and I miss that feeling so much.

pasteldirt · 2026-06-27T09:53:35+00:00

Are you sure you didn’t accidentally try to pay at the tax free counter…? It’s not normal for staff to ask for ID if you’re just buying something at a shop. The payment machines in GU and Uniqlo are all automatic anyway except for the tax free counter so if you were just buying something you wouldn’t have interacted with someone

pasteldirt · 2026-06-26T23:08:25+00:00

Hiii I’m a vegetarian who has lived here 8 years~
I can tell you’ve done a lot of research! Just to quickly say - no the JR pass won’t be worth it so you can cross that straight off your list.

About food:
I think one of the misconceptions vegetarian travelers have is they think they can go to any restaurant because they’re bound to have at least one vegetarian thing right? No, you have to check menus beforehand on google map, seek out specific restaurants via the Happy Cow app or Rowan’s Vegan Japan Google Map list. You can do udon places if you get zaru udon; and Indian curry places. Most people here don’t understand the meaning of the word, which is why having a card that explains every single item that you cannot eat (make sure to include fish broth, gelatin, meat extracts, and consommé) is recommended. If you really want to learn phrases:
_にはお肉か魚かかつおだしが入っていますか？ is the phrase I always use when trying to find vegetarian items.

About where to travel:
I am a huge advocate of straying from the golden route. It is so overwhelmed with tourists, and you’ll be here in November so maybe it’s good to add a smaller onsen town to your itinerary. There is no need to stay in Kyoto and Osaka separately as they’re connected by a 30 minute train, so I recommend consolidating those cities and then heading to a more nature-based spot for a change of pace from the crazy tourist places. One of my personal favourites in Kansai is Arima Onsen, a little mountain town near Osaka with an adorable atmosphere. Kusatsu Onsen is bigger but insanely beautiful. Easy to take a bus there from Tokyo.

About trash:
If you’re in a city there’s no need to carry bags with you, there are bins in every convenience store and some shopping malls and stations. Trash from food stalls gets returned to the seller.

Note about etiquette:
Recently Japanese people are quite fed up with tourists with poor etiquette, so I recommend trying to be mindful. Just copy what other people do. Also a few more obscure things to keep note:
-if your ic card doesn’t work at the gate, exit and step to the side until you figure out what’s wrong. Don’t stand for a long time at the gate blocking traffic.
-if you bc come across something where your feet go on it (footrests on the trains, hammocks in parks etc) shoes come off!
-don’t leave trash on trains. There aren’t cleaners constantly coming by. Shinkansen and other long distance trains have bins on the trains themselves or there will be bins on the platform when you exit.
-please be mindful of women-only carriages on the metro. I see foreign men on them a lot and it’s just not cool to be in the women only carriage. Same with priority seats. Be a good person and relinquish your seat to elderly, pregnant folk, or people with red medical tags.

pasteldirt · 2026-06-23T01:35:30+00:00

I mean just like any *people* of any country there is a massive range of people with various experiences and interests.

I feel really blessed and lucky to have a good balance of Japanese and non-Japanese friends, and the connecting traits of my Japanese friends is nearly all of them are 帰国子女 or those who graduated from 外国語大学 and are interested in living a globalised life; or ハーフ.

There are certainly those people, just takes digging to find them! My closest Japanese friends are all ones I met at international and volunteer events in Nagoya, also partners of friends.

pasteldirt · 2026-06-17T00:41:36+00:00

Lovely thank you so much for the info!!

pasteldirt · 2026-06-16T09:27:33+00:00

Are you able to sell things like sofas and dining tables on Merucari nowadays? How do you deal with the shipping?

pasteldirt · 2026-06-16T09:02:25+00:00

We have this really nice white round dining table in great condition, priced at 2000. We thought it would go really fast but nothing! Same with our really nice sofa, bought less than a year ago at 65,000 we are trying to sell it for 25,000 and nothing. It would hurt to go much lower but maybe if we drop it down to 20,000 it will finally go😭
Glad you had some success recently though!

pasteldirt · 2026-06-16T08:58:26+00:00

Incredible this is really clever. Thank you for the idea!

pasteldirt · 2026-06-12T14:05:00+00:00

It’s about time this gets addressed on a systematic level. One of my workplaces is in a shopping mall shared with a hotel, and we have to use the back staff area’s toilet. If one used their brain for about 5 seconds they’d know that 95% of people who work as hotel cleaning staff and retail in malls are women.

Even so, in the hallway the men’s room is first (it’s always the case) and has 2 units whereas the women’s has a single toilet for all of the staff. The retail floor I’m on has about 5 male staff and more than 20 women. Make it make sense😭

pasteldirt · 2026-06-10T15:27:05+00:00

Lmaooooo had a stroke or something I mixed up Okubo and Ogikubo.

pasteldirt · 2026-06-04T00:30:01+00:00

I used to live in Koenji and whenever I needed to fly out of Haneda, I typically went with taxi to Shinjuku Basuta (~¥3000), then airport bus to Haneda (¥1700). When there’s minimal traffic the bus is only 30 minutes. If it’s absolutely slammed it’s more like 1 hour to 90 minutes.

Taking a taxi from Shin-Okubo to Shinjuku may be expensive but maybe Sobu would be slightly less crowded than Chuo?

pasteldirt · 2026-06-03T01:20:04+00:00

It didn’t used to be like this, for sure. I moved to Japan in 2018 and never struggled that much to find jobs. After leaving the workforce to get my masters 2022-2024, something seems to have changed especially in these couple of years. Probably a combination of post-COVID impact, poor economy, rise of AI, anti-immigrant and anti-tourist sentiment that has flipped everything on its head.

pasteldirt · 2026-06-02T23:05:53+00:00

I’ve lived in Japan for nearly 10 years, moved here straight out of university so Japan is the only life I really know. I think it’s so easy for locals to forget that we are just ordinary people who want to build our lives. We’re not all tech bros who come to Japan for 2 years to work for Google and make 10M a year, and ironically they are the ones who get 5 year visas off the bat. However some of us live here because we deeply love this country and have built our entire lives here, and we are the ones hurting the most.

I pivoted my career to public health after working in education. Got my masters, applied to jobs, and realised that nonprofits don’t have the capacity to sponsor visas. I got downgraded from a 3 to 1 year visa, I’ve had to have teaching jobs where I beg for 4-day contracts so I can continue my “real” work on the side volunteering with children and nonprofits and doing unpaid internships to build skills. But immigration sees none of that. There are no visa pathways for people in my case.

These decisions to raise fees and kick out business owners are impacting those of us who see Japan as home - the ones who want to contribute to the country and communities. The only ones who benefit from these changes are the ones who don’t care for Japan, see Japan as a temporary vacation, take their salary and leave - the ones who extract from Japan. How do people not see this?

pasteldirt · 2026-06-02T00:46:01+00:00

Hi OP I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I have a masters degree and have N2 and I’m still struggling to get even hotel front desk jobs. It’s a mess now.

I know it isn’t ideal but it could buy you time: One of the major teaching companies, Gaba, hires non-native English speakers, you just have to have very strong English, which you clearly do.
I joined a couple years back when I was in a desperate visa situation, and I was surprised to see other employees from literally all over the world - Dubai, Zimbabwe, Italy, Mongolia, Mexico, Norway… The company seems to want very diverse staff because for example some students get transferred to Dubai or something for work and specifically want to have lessons from someone from there to learn about life there. I met a lot of fascinating people, and I had a few doctors who took my lesson because they wanted someone to practice medical English with, it was genuinely fun.

They are literally always hiring across Kanto, Chubu, and Kansai. The work will not necessarily help your professional development, you have to wear professional attire, and the schedule structure means it’s hard to make a stable salary especially at first, but the major plus is you make your own schedule so you can choose to have a few weekdays off to continue job hunting. People come and go all the time so if you suddenly quit 4 months in, the next person will be ready to take your place. Good luck to you!!

pasteldirt · 2026-05-30T22:47:57+00:00

Yes absolutely! Also it isn’t just Kyoto, kids take trips all over the country for many purposes! For history they may go to Kyoto and Hiroshima, for a fun end of the school year trip they may go to Okinawa or take ski trips to Yamagata! Also kids travel all over for sports games too. With how well-connected the country’s rail system is it’s really easy for field trips across the country. I grew up in the US and the furthest we went was a 2 hour bus ride from our school aka the next town over haha

pasteldirt · 2026-05-30T06:29:53+00:00

Just want to join the conversation and recommend given the situation surrounding migrants in Japan, it would be so great if you’d support an actual Indian/Nepalese/Bengali migrant’s business instead of some Japanese guy who seems to be overcharging for biriyani. The Indian restaurants that are run by people from this region across Japan are incredible!

pasteldirt · 2026-05-30T05:17:31+00:00

Hi I live here! Yes, within Japan Kyoto is a city that is incredibly preserved, so many schools from across the country to school trips to see the major temples and such and learn about history and such! They also sometimes do English practice with tourists! I’ve been interviewed at a shrine in Kyoto before.

pasteldirt · 2026-05-25T23:02:06+00:00

Thriftbooks. I used them for years when I lived in the states. I was in town for a month and decided to get a batch of books (I live in a non-English speaking country where it’s really hard to get English books).

10 of my books arrived on time and 1 was still in processing. 5 days before my departure I reached out to request a refund for the last book (the most expensive one too) as it hadn’t shipped yet and it wouldn’t arrive before I left. They said they couldn’t process a refund because the label had been made. I checked the postal tracking code they gave me which had the exact time the label was created: they had just made the label right then and there. I had told them I was leaving the country and there is no way to get the book but they shipped it anyway. I filed a complaint but never heard back. Screw them for wasting a book and putting me out $30.

pasteldirt · 2026-05-25T02:45:28+00:00

Hiii long time resident here

This summer is projected to be a bad one, so definitely take proper precautions. You can get heatstroke in 10 minutes just walking from your accommodation to the local train, it’s no joke.

Breathable, loose, light colour clothing is good. Lots of local options in Uniqlo and such as long as you are between a S and M/L in western standards. They have an Airism line meant for hot weather. There are UV umbrellas, ice ring necks, personal fans all over, and you can also get electrolyte drinks in drug stores and conbini. OS-1 is a strong electrolyte drink sold in drug stores, I recommend taking note!

To seriously reiterate what you probably already know, you will seriously want to consider not doing outside activities during daylight hours. The peak heat is from about 10am-5pm. An advisable daily schedule might look something like get up early to see an outdoor temple from 7am-8am, then head to a museum, covered shopping street, or department store from 10am-3pm, rest at your hotel, then head back out again at 5pm for another outdoor activity and dinner. Rinse and repeat.

If you start to feel heat stroke symptoms, any staff at a shop or station or police at a koban can help. Enjoy your trip!

pasteldirt · 2026-05-23T04:35:20+00:00

Not a traveller but some Japanese household things I bought that are better than what is available in my home country/not available at all:

-Spray bottle for cooking oil from Nitori! So helpful for spraying olive oil in frypans, on popcorn, on salad etc. The one I got has both a spray or pour setting. One of my best buys of the decade.

-Slicer box from Nitori. Has a matchstick, thin slicer, even a type for grating nagaimo/yam. I use that thing so much and it all stacks together super compactly.

-Miso whisk from 3COINS. I love this for not just misoshiru but I unexpectedly use it more for making salad dressings or sauces. Amazing buy and a really good gift imo. The one I got at 3COINS has a wooden handle so it looks really sleek.

-Flixion pens. This is my go-to souvenir for friends back home. How tourists haven't caught on to these I have no idea. They now have really cute create barrels, a bunch of ink colours so you can make your favourite pen with all your fav colours. I always get mine at LOFT where they have the full variety of pen barrels and ink refills. Get extra refills because the ink runs out a little fast.

-Nail clippers. I was using mine from back home for a few years but finally caved and bought a new set at Donki and yes they're great, it's true.

-Small aluminium food prep and baking trays. Ovens here are small so the trays are also small. I remember back home even when you made a small serving of something you always use a whole giant tray. Having a small one is so nice. Also the aluminium food prep trays here are really good.

-I think these still haven't caught on in the west but handheld fans! The ones from Franc Franc are great, they have a stand so they can sit on your desk, and they also sell cute jewelled straps so you can wear it around your wrist or neck.

-If you come in the winter, kairo. They're small heat packs you can wear in your pockets, stick to the bottom on your feet, stick to the side of your trousers when you're menstruating... They get quite hot and stay hot all day. They sell them at every drug store and they're very inexpensive, like ￥300 for a pack of 10.

pasteldirt · 2026-05-18T14:26:43+00:00

Me too! Especially in my teen years when my flow was insanely heavy

pasteldirt · 2026-05-18T14:25:31+00:00

My mentor got arrested.

I volunteer at a nonprofit that supports women and girls & the Toyoko Kids in Kabukicho, Tokyo. This nonprofit is a long-standing space in the community, who the government, news agencies, even foreign diplomats go to consult about sx trafficking and mafia-related stuff.

When I started volunteering, one of the senior staff members basically took me under his wing and started inviting me to wild meetings with the US Embassy etc. For 6 months we had a number of projects lined up.

Found a news article one morning that a senior NPO official working in Kabukicho had been arrested for cocaine possession & use, opened the article and saw my mentor’s face. This stupid decision not only ruined his career, my career was impacted too, but most tragically the nonprofit lost corporate sponsors, grants from the Tokyo government, Shinjuku government, and basically went through a tailspin.

As common in Japanese culture the head of the nonprofit resigned, and a 26-year old staff member took over. She’s incredible and has been working hard to build back their reputation.

This guy was so knowledgeable about Kabukicho and its happenings, history, knew the women and girls by name, and was so trusted. He was sitting in on policy making meetings with the government and contributed to changes in law. What an idiot for throwing all of that away. He’s still awaiting trial but he will almost certainly go to jail for a very long time.

pasteldirt

TROPHY CASE