ABOUT
Living in Japan is hard when nobody tells you the rules. This site is the senpai (senior friend) you don’t have yet.
Practical, honest guides for people from Nepal, Sri Lanka and beyond — so you don’t lose your visa, get ripped off, or overpay while building a life in Japan.
Why this site exists
In Japan there is a word: senpai (先輩) — a senior who quietly teaches you how things work. “That restaurant is good.” “This will be on the test.” Small advice that saves you again and again.
Most Japanese people grow up with senpai. But when you arrive from abroad, you often have no one to explain the deposit and “key money” on an apartment, the 28-hour work limit, or how to refuse an unfair move-out bill. So you lose money — or worse, your visa — without ever knowing the rule existed.
This site is here to be that senpai.
What you’ll find here
Real, specific answers to the things that actually go wrong — not vague advice:
- Getting started: registering your address, health insurance, a bank account and a SIM
- Money: sending money home cheaply, getting a credit card, the cheapest SIM
- Housing: renting an apartment, and not overpaying when you leave
- Home internet: fibre vs pocket Wi-Fi
Five skills, in the order that matters
We don’t just list information — we put it in the order you actually need it. Think of it as five skills for building a life in Japan, starting with the one that protects everything else.
- 1. Protect — keep your visa, avoid scams and unfair contracts, stay healthy (most important)
- 2. Save — cut your rent, phone bill, remittance fees and taxes
- 3. Earn — part-time work, better Japanese, changing your visa to work full-time
- 4. Grow — investing and pension refunds (coming soon)
- 5. Spend well — family, culture, and the life you want to build here
Protect comes first — because if you lose your visa, nothing else matters. That is why we start there, not with “how to invest.”
Who writes this?
This site is run by mori, a Japanese person. The topics come from real problems that friends from Nepal and Sri Lanka have faced. The numbers and procedures are checked against official sources (Immigration Services Agency, National Tax Agency, the Ministry of Land and others).
Every guide also has a Japanese version written in simple Japanese (around JLPT N2). Read both, and you learn to live here and improve your Japanese at the same time.
A small request
If this site helps you, please share it with a friend who lives in Japan. Your share brings us new questions to answer — and makes the site more useful for the next person who arrives. Let’s pass the knowledge on, like a senpai would.
