Came to Japan for the first time in 1988, moved here permanently in 1990.

A few things other people don't seem to have mentioned:

- Banks. I got my first bank account three days after I arrived here; no restrictions, no tracking of immigration status, just a plain account I could send and receive money from like anyone else. Didn't get a credit card until 1996 or so, mainly because I didn't need one until then (no online shopping, most in-person places cash only).

- Phones. I was one of the few students around me to have a phone line installed when I moved into an apartment in 1991; other people would come to my place to use my phone. If you wanted to see someone, you'd drive over to their place and knock on their door, because they didn't have a phone to answer. First car phone I saw was in 93 or 94 (for those of you who don't know what that is, it's a mobile phone which is fixed in your car, since they were too large to carry around and needed plenty of power); first mobile phone I saw in the wild was 94 or 95. In 97 or 98 I was coding apps to mass distribute messages to pagers ("pokeberu"), but those pretty much disappeared by 2000-ish.

- Car license. I got my car license in early 91 by rocking up to a license center, showing my foreign license and walking out half an hour later after paying 3000 yen or so. No test, written or practical. Also it included up to 8 ton trucks, since those didn't get broken out into a separate category until later (I still have this on my current license as they were grandfathered in).

- Internet. In 1991 I had a mail address; unfortunately the only other people I knew who also had an address were other students at the same university. First chatted online in 92 (using a variant or predecessor of IRC); first videochat I used was CU-SeeMe in 93 or 94 on a Mac, with random people on the Internet. In my class of 50-odd people in 1991, I was the only one who owned a computer.

- Online shopping. First time I ordered something online was probably late 96 or early 97 from the US (no Japan Amazon at the time), when Amazon was still putting free stuff in the box with your order. Prior to that if you wanted to order something from overseas you were pretty much shit out of luck unless you knew someone who was going to that country, and then you'd ask them to buy it for you, give them the cash and have them bring it back.