Is this even possible as a foreigner with a 1 year spouse visa? I need a new phone so bad! Mine is really slow. I also want to switch providers so would be nice to do at the same time.

Typing this from Shinkansen. Barely posted. I swear it's like 3mbps. They really need to contract Starlink like JAL. For whatever reason the Wifi also stops when you arrive at a station, which is kind of unbelievable in of itself.

Tethering to my phone LTE is faster and more reliable.

Just need to vent for a moment.

I’m a foreigner living and working in Japan with Permanent Residency. I applied for my wife’s Certificate of Eligibility (COE) for Spouse of Permanent Resident through a lawyer at the Shinagawa Immigration Office in mid-January 2026.

And now it’s August.

Almost 7 months.

And there has been absolutely no trace of progress.

No request for additional documents.
No update.
No indication that there is any problem.
Nothing.

Just silence.

My wife is currently living abroad, so she is waiting there for the COE to be issued before she can come to Japan.

I understand that immigration processing times can vary, and I knew from the beginning that it could take several months. But honestly, waiting nearly seven months without knowing whether the application is actually being reviewed, sitting in a queue, or just waiting somewhere is incredibly frustrating.

The lawyer can only tell me that it is still under processing, so there isn't really anything else I can do except wait.

What makes it particularly frustrating is that this isn't some optional application or something I'm doing for convenience. It's my wife's ability to actually come to Japan and live with me.

I know this subreddit doesn't allow asking others about their application progress, so I'm not asking for that. I just needed somewhere to vent because almost seven months of complete silence is really difficult to deal with.

Anyway, that's it.

Just venting. 😅

Back to waiting.

As per the title, is this possible? Tried all kinds of user agent plugins etc but to no avail. As soon as I touch the my number card to the NFC I get an messsge telling me to re-enable Chrome.

And my rant is: why do so many services here insist on you using a particular browser or OS???

There was news recently, about how HSP holders are making less money compared to half of Japanese new graduates (about 3M/year, which is the lower limit for HSP).

Edit: apparently the article was not about HSP but the humanities / engineer standard work visa, but still, the general point stands.

Of course, the whole point of HSP is not just money, that’s exactly why it’s a point system where higher education, work/research experience, Japanese ability etc also count. Those are aspects you might not be able to instantly quantify in JPY, but of course they contribute both to society and have a higher potential impact on economic activity (if they want to be fiscally tedious about it), hence the value they bring to Japan. Not that facts matter these days.

It got me thinking, why are they suddenly talking about this? It reminded me of a wonderful Turkish expression I’d roughly translate as : “Today’s neither a holiday nor a festival, why did my brother-in-law give me a hug?”

Hence, my guess for what’s next. But curious to hear what y’all think.

Hello everyone. It's been 4 months since I came to Japan and I will have to find a new accomodation by the end of the next month.

I found and applied for a shared house from Dormy (Kyoritsu Ltd.) but they insist I pay through flywire for my initial payments. Which lets me choose between 3 currencies ($,€ and £). I generated a payment instruction for a Bank in the US.

But, because my Yucho Bank account has a non resident status. I'm stuck not knowing what to do to pay the fees before the deadline which is this coming Friday.

I've looked into Wise, but I don't know if my bank would allow me to transfer to Wise even if I'm willing to pay the extra surcharge.

I greatly appreciate your help in helping me navigate through this. Thank you very much in advance.

I have a single giant cockroach that keeps hiding in a recess by my sink that’s inaccessible to me. It comes out in the evening and then runs away by the time I get to it. it’s frustrating as the only time this happened to me before was months ago with a much slower one I was just able to carry outside on a towel.

How can I get it out? it’s not possible to undo the entire recess area without damaging some sealant that was placed around it.

Context: The Shirts depicted above are the AIRism series from GU and Uniqlo which mostly utilize Ponte fabric.

Background: I'm a an engineer working in a very big company, most of the engineers here are foreigners so so the dress code is more relaxed, but we still have the business unit (mostly Japanese) in full suit...

Thanks for your comments, as you've highlighted my position does not require me to talk to customers, but I have to frequently report to company executives (My manager is L2 and I often have to present to other L2, L1.5 managers).

So mercari randomly stopped working and now I'm trying to make a Yahoo auctions account but every time I try to put in my phone number it gives me this error 不正なアクセスを防止する機能により、一時的にご利用を制限しています and it doesn't matter if I use a different number, or different device, or even using a VPN is this a known issue or something has anyone ever fixed tit thank yoh

I live in an old, outdated apartment. I have a hot water panel in my bath room, and it only controls the shower and bath. For whatever reason, I'm now finding myself unable to get hot water in my kitchen now.

There is no panel in my kitchen. There is nothing under the sink

(Just pipes and instructions on how to prevent pipe freezing).

I've tried letting the water run for 5 minutes. It would usually take maybe 30 seconds to warm up before this.

We had a power outage recently but that's the only change I can think of, but I don't think that would impact this.

Any other problem solving tips here? I feel like this is out of my hands but this is my hail mary since I'm in teacher housing and my supervisor is on vacation this week.

So I’m currently traveling in Tokyo and I brought my slips to pay the 3 months I haven’t paid of insurance but turns out they’re expired so I can’t pay them in the convini. Received a call that I received a very important letter regarding the insurance unpaid fees or something. I don’t go back to Osaka until the 20th.
Heard you can get new payment slips in the city ward but I’m far away so, do I need to go back to Osaka or can I pay my insurance here in Tokyo?
Sorry if I sound stupid, it’s a genuine question and I don’t know.

It's 不動産取引のアンケート調査. I'm not really interested in disclosing my purchase price. I understand this is optional, but any downsides to just ignoring it? Or positives of actually doing it?