moved

i've moved to gaijinhan.wordpress.com...
sorry for the inconvenience caused

working on pre-college student visa

the myth i've been hearing about not being able to work the first three months in japan under the pre-college student visa has been broken.

it is not true that you cannot work for the first three months. all you need to do is to get a letter from your school, head to city hall and apply for a visa that allows you to engage in activities outside what your current visa allows. you can get it the same day you apply for it and it's free.

the catch is, you are only allowed to work no more than 4 hours a day, 28 hours a week. so even if you had one day off, it doesn't mean that you can work 8 hours the next day. during public holidays, however, you are able to work up to 8 hours a day. however, the 28 hours/week limit doesn't change.

softbank and its hidden costs

blast me for bandwidth stealing but i just can't be bothered to save the image and reupload again.

so the giant service provider has shown some other side of themselves only when you confirm purchase of the service. sounds a little like a certain yoga-cum-fitness empire back home, except that softbank probably provides better aftersales service.

so you were confused about the plan that i typed before. doesn't matter, i was too. i went there with a friend who was determined to get his iphone here and so i managed to discover the shitty deals before i signed up, which i don't intend to already unless i stay for a good year or two.

internet data plans aside (do find out about non-subscription options for internet plans, you could possibly save a few thousand yen), you are obligated to sign up for the double white plan for the first 3 months and if you wanna cancel it after that, you have to go down to the office to get it terminated. as mentioned in an earlier post, double white plan costs an addition ￥980 per month. on top of that, you'll have to pay almost ￥3,000 of handling charge for the first month so your first phone bill is gonna be around ￥8,000. that's USD$80, SGD$120. that is like 5 months worth of my phone bill back home.

of course if you're gonna stay in japan for a good number of years, by all means, get it. but if you're just gonna stay for a year or less, it all boils down to how wealthy you are.

JR knows

have you ever thought that the Japan Rail has too many train routes? JR thinks so too...


near the top reads JR太多線

too many lines...