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I remember seeing the flight to Yuzho Sakhalinsk from Tokyo on skyscanner, it's surprisingly cheap, I think it had a stopover in Vladivostok though, so maybe the final leg is done with some cheap, terrifying domestic airliner. I'd love to check out Sakhalin one day. I like rear end end of the world type of places like that.
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Jan 23, 2016 10:40
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I pay 1300 yen a month for national health insurance. I think they'll raise it for next year but I think my dog tore up the envelope containing that information, so I guess I will just wait and see because gently caress calling the ward office and keigo'ing myself to a new envelope. I actually think health insurance here is not such a bad deal, even coming from Holland, considering how cheap most doctor's visits are, and how generous they are with medication compared to Europe. Or maybe I just had a really stingy doctor in my own country.
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Mar 5, 2016 04:43
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Just cycle on the left side of the road and stare down anyone dumb enough to come from the other direction.
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Mar 22, 2016 07:32
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Original_Z posted:Most roads are too narrow to accommodate bikers and cars, it's stressful and dangerous for both parties involved. Roads that are big enough to accommodate bikers are guaranteed to have cars parked on the side of the road, forcing people to dangerously weave in and out of traffic. I know all of that is true, but there's also a bad habit of just riding on the wrong side. At some point I got tired of moving out of the way of old ladies driving on the right.
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Mar 22, 2016 12:56
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Don't go to the stupid loving robot restaurant.
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Mar 29, 2016 08:13
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I don't care about authenticity but the robot restaurant just seems so stupid. You know those ads in inflight magazines for random singing and dancing shows at your arrival destination aimed at white middle class people who don't know how to have an actual good time in another country? That's what the robot restaurant is.
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Mar 30, 2016 02:26
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Caught a whiff of someone smoking weed in yoyogi the other day. I was with my wifes friends, who are mostly goody two shoes girls. It was funny how most of them instantly recognized the smell. I think they all secretly smoked it once.
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Mar 31, 2016 10:07
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Then again, they're just trees.
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Apr 9, 2016 23:18
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I don't expect people to know all of the differences between different European countries because they have no reason to know about them, but it does really bug me when somebody just bluntly assumes that I'm American.
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May 8, 2016 08:50
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What's the best way to get a card that works in overseas ATMs in Japan? I want to move some of my Japan money to Holland, but I still don't quite get the way banks work here. I have a Japan Post account, which just issued me a stripless ATM card which doesn't work anywhere else in the world. Is there a bank which gives me a real, Maestro-like card that will let me withdraw from foreign ATMs without problems? I'd rather not get a credit card because it hardly seems worth it, and I just use my Dutch mastercard for everything here anyway. Or should I just do an international transfer? Or physically take my yen and exchange it somewhere? I can't find a lot of good information on this.
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Oct 2, 2016 01:35
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As far as I know the actual "city center" is the area stretching from ueno down to taito and bunkyo and marunouchi and nihonbashi. Shinjuku was then built where it is because it's a seismically stable area, so that's where the skyscrapers are. The area around Shibuya is where a lot of big townhouses and embassies used to be (and the latter still are) so that became a center too. Ikebukuro is the entry point for every line from Saitama, so altogether they form a kind of big U-shaped string of city centers around the palace.
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Oct 22, 2016 07:39
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I like how decrepit 70's and 80's hotels in Japan often still have old timey arcades in their basements with cabinets that they never switched out. It's always a surprise what games you can find there. Last time I was at a place like that in Ito I had to ask reception if they could switch the power on so I could play for a bit.
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Nov 5, 2016 14:41
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I'm going to go home for a while and won't renew my spouse visa I think (it expires in July), but I plan to come back in a few years with another spouse visa. Should I tell the government that I'm moving out? Should I just stop paying health insurance? Or can I just go home and let the visa expire? There's a whole webpage with information about this http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_1/en/q-and-a_page2.html ... but it's loving unreadable. It seems to threaten you with fines if you don't return your residence card, but does that really happen?
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Nov 30, 2016 14:51
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I was told by my father in law that I could simply cancel my health insurance and go home, and renew my visa before it expires if I feel I should. He is an immigration solicitor but my Japanese is not at the level where I can discuss complicated legal stuff with him, and my wife is already in Holland, she normally translates for this kind of stuff. He is my sponsor and said I could just go home and return whenever I want on my current visa, canceling my health insurance for the time and renewing or not as needed but I want to make sure. I don't have outstanding bills or anything like that. Not sure how that makes me a "cheap prick". Do you people have anger issues? Shibawanko fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Dec 1, 2016 |
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Dec 1, 2016 16:32
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Well I'm back in Japan to meet the family and it's hot. Why must it be hot.
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Jul 15, 2018 23:41
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If you want good easy ramen go to bigiya in gakugeidaigaku, michelin recommended and usually no queue
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Jul 16, 2018 16:45
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I went to Disneyland, my wife really wanted to go but I enjoyed it too since I'm afraid of heights and can't ride rollercoasters for real men. The only palatable popcorns there are the honey one and the salty one, caramel is an inherently vile substance and so is white chocolate. I saw Mickey Mouse.
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Jul 20, 2018 05:41
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I missed izakayas. Getting drunk as gently caress off salty lichee highballs and hoppy while shoveling 200 yen plates of fried oysters down my mouth with an empty beer crate for a chair kicks rear end.
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Jul 22, 2018 07:54
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Or Haippi, which is the thinking man's Hoppy.
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Jul 22, 2018 07:58
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:Idk man the ryokan thing seems cool but it seems pretty $$$ to do correctly. Business hotels are cheap and then you can spend your money elsewhere I guess? A "proper" Kyoto style ryokan can be very expensive, if you want a huge room and an in house onsen. I personally don't think it's worth the cost of doing it more than once. But Japan is full of minshuku's, which still usually have Japanese style rooms, only simpler and usually with a shared bathroom. The food can also still be really good in a minshuku, I stayed in a minshuku a little ways west of Shimoda, for example, which was just a room in the house of a local fisherwoman who would go out and dive for seafood every day to serve to the guests. The dinner was huge, with really great seashell soup and whatnot, but we still didn't pay more than 3000 yen a night. Places like that are hard to find without knowing Japanese though. In the cities business hotels are often your only cheap option, although there might be reasonably priced airbnb's and some inner city minshuku's or minimalist ryokans exist, like this one in Tokyo: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g1066442-d320548-Reviews-Homeikan-Bunkyo_Tokyo_Tokyo_Prefecture_Kanto.html Shibawanko fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Jul 31, 2018 |
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Jul 31, 2018 01:58
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Cbear posted:Thanks for all the replies on the itinerary my friends. You guys rock. I already booked my accommodations for the Osaka and Kyoto legs today. If you want to go to Disneyland: stay around Tokyo station/hatchobori. I'm flying to Osaka for a little 3 day trip today, probably going to go to Shirahama beach, Kyoto and eat horumon.
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Jul 31, 2018 02:10
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Akihabara has a shimonya branch and is thus worth visiting
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Aug 1, 2018 13:47
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Injuryprone posted:I agree completely. The wife wants to do half and half as she doesn't know Korea is one big mall. It's actually one big restaurant
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Aug 2, 2018 01:45
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Next time I'm here I want to fly to Sapporo, then go down to Hakodate, take the ferry across to the osorezan peninsula, rent a car and drive around there and to Aomori and then go home from there.
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Aug 5, 2018 06:19
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Tokyo isn't really a place to see anything. It's a place where you shove food in your mouth as fast as you can.
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Sep 7, 2018 22:23
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punk rebel ecks posted:So what's the best way getting around Tokyo? Train? On foot, if you're like me
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Sep 8, 2018 19:31
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Magna Kaser posted:I want Japan to import the concept of trash cans in public spaces. There used to be public trans cans before the aum attack, I was told.
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Sep 10, 2018 07:19
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Yukatas are comfortable but i only wear them indoors because ultimately I can't shake the feeling that I'm wearing a dress
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Sep 11, 2018 17:36
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Busy Bee posted:Two questions: Mont Bell is pretty nice I think. I dunno if MB is that high quality but it's a typically Japanese brand that specializes in outdoor stuff, they have big stores everywhere, there's one in Kyobashi, for example. Shibawanko fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Sep 11, 2018 |
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Sep 11, 2018 19:07
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Jpop is just loving boring with all the same synchronized dances and creepy infantilized girls over and over. Overall I really like Japanese music though, just not pop music.
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Sep 12, 2018 08:45
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Mons Hubris posted:Just jazz/fusion by Japanese artists I guess. Maher Shalal Hash Baz is good naiivist music with jazz influences. The lead artist used to be in a group that planned to kill the emperor. I really like some Japanese folk music like Nagisa Ni Te and some noise rock like Number Girl and stuff. Also Matsuwa by Amin, a girl duo literally named after Idi Amin because they thought his name sounded cool and they knew nothing about him.
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Sep 13, 2018 10:39
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TopHatGenius posted:I'm going to Japan next week and while I've a good idea on what to do in Tokyo, I'm still a little unsure about what to do in Osaka. Go to the korean neighborhood with all the small alleys and eat like a swine. Go to the aquarium too.
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Sep 17, 2018 07:15
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TopHatGenius posted:I'm going to Japan next week and while I've a good idea on what to do in Tokyo, I'm still a little unsure about what to do in Osaka. Dotonbori also kind of sucks and isn't worth visiting for more than a stroll, unless you want to see 20 white people lining up to eat ramen at some chain store mentioned in their lonely planet or really like the sound of the Chinese language. The same goes for Kuromon market. Tsuruhashi is a good station to get off from and eat I thought (I don't live in Osaka though and there might be better places), I ate horumon at a popular place called Sora and it was really good so if you're into that sort of thing I recommend that. Netflix has an episode of Ainsley Eats the Streets in Osaka which features a few restaurants that are pretty decent.
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Sep 17, 2018 15:29
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ntan1 posted:I made the mistake of stopping by the Akihabara Matsumoto Kiyoshi because a friend wanted to buy some stuff there. Some Chinese employee came up to me and started rudely screaming into my face in Chinese. Was kinda annoyed by this and tried to find a Japanese employee but couldn't, and then walked out of the store. It felt like I was transported to a different country for a second. Well what did they say? Why would staff shout at you?
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Sep 17, 2018 21:43
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I miss the manic Tokyu Store jingle, which is probably less than a minute long and plays on a loud loop all day to keep the staff motivated
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Oct 3, 2018 15:56
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ALFbrot posted:The best is the Yamada Denki song in LABI stores: [in an extremely American voice] Book-Off Information Book-Off Information The Music
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Oct 3, 2018 19:16
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I seriously don't know how anyone can work in Tokyu Store no, at least Ozeki doesn't have a jingle, just a person shouting over a megaphone about discounts This is probably also why I prefer to shop at Lidl and Aldi back home, those places don't have a soundtrack
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Oct 3, 2018 21:51
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Well poo poo, I'm going back there in december but today I accidentally spilled coffee on my passport. It's not too bad, the main page (made of hard plastic) is unaffected but the middle two visa pages have a stain running down the spine. According to the passport authority in my country that means it's still valid since everything is still legible and nothing is falling apart but we all know what Japanese bureaucrats are like. Anyone ever got poo poo from immigration trying to enter with a not-pristine passport?
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Oct 27, 2018 07:45
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Do they use passport scanners in the airports in Tokyo? I only recall manual checks.
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Oct 27, 2018 17:11
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History Comes Inside! posted:I went early as recommended and ended up going to Meiji Jingu where it looked like a wedding was happening but there were still tourists everywhere getting right up to where the ceremony was going on? It's always like that, every time I've been there there was a wedding because it's just very popular.
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Nov 11, 2018 11:15
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