Name: How I’ve Lived in Japan for 20 Years 🇯🇵✨ visa advice + more
Uploaded: 2025-10-08T18:25:21.000Z
Duration: 22 min 52 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Present continuous

I just realized yesterday that it's coming up on 20 years of me moving to Japan and that's just wild.

Gerund

I can remember moving here so clearly and it's so strange to realize that that was 20 years ago now.

I thought this would be a good time to ask you if you had any questions about life in Japan.

Working here, living here, having pets, speaking Japanese, etc.

So I asked you guys for questions on Instagram.

Thank you so much for sending so many in.

What's something you still can't get fully used to in Japan?

The thing that I still can't get used to is Japanese style toilets.

What's the thing that I liked from day one that I still like now?

My first experience in Japan was way up in the countryside in the middle of nowhere, in like a bunch of rice fields.

And I think the views of the green rice fields really impressed me.

I don't think I'll ever get bored of that.

That's one thing that I liked when I first came here and I still like now.

Japanese cat toys versus U.S. canadian cat toys.

I find that they're a lot more creative in Japan.

You can find some really interesting cat toys here.

For example, Morrow's absolute favorite cat toy is this little Ebby Fry.

He's looking at me right now because he wants it.

For Christmas, I got him this massive version of it and he uses it as a kicker toy.

He was so stoked when he opened this present.

If you're a pet owner, really encourage you to find a big pet store when you're here in Japan and go shopping for toys for your pets because they're very, very different.

Lots of questions about how to buy a house in Japan.

You're not treated any differently just because you're a foreigner.

The only issue is if you'd like to get a loan or like to get a mortgage.

So if you're buying in cash, no problem at all.

If you're foreign, you're Japanese, it'll be the same.

If you want to get a loan, then you need permanent residency.

How did you initially save money to go to Japan?

Yeah, I was lucky in that I had lots of jobs while I was in high school and also while I was in my first couple years of university in Canada.

I had probably three part time jobs going at all times.

I worked as a cashier in a Japanese grocery store in Canada.

I was a tour guide for Japanese students and Chinese students that were visiting Victoria.

Honestly, what else can I say to you guys other than just work a lot?

What's the best hike you've been on in all of Japan?

I always say that because the weather is nice and cool, you could enjoy being outside.

There's no humidity and the leaves are gorgeous.

spring is just so crowded here because so many tourists come here to see the cherry blossoms.

If you're going to be in Tokyo, I would say the best time to come is autumn.

And the best hike I've been on is hands down the Nakasendo Trail.

Me and Chris just did it recently and it was such a good experience.

Unfortunately I was very sick at the time we got there.

We stayed the night beforehand and I woke up in the morning feeling like hell.

So it made the hike a lot more difficult than it probably would have been.

So it's hard for me to explain the difficulty of the hike.

I would say it's probably very enjoyable regardless of how I felt.

The views were so nice and it's such a calm experience.

We didn't see that many people on the trail.

We would pass people maybe every half hour.

I really like how the hike is broken up by little towns.

So you'll have like a big hike through the mountains for a few hours and then you'll end up in a town and you can explore the town, stop for food, stop for tea, take a little rest, and

then you're off on the next hike through the forest.

And you can choose where you start and where you stop.

We hiked for I think four to five days, maybe four days.

And we ended up in Narai Juku, which is a very nice route.

I recommend that if you want like a four day experience.

Okay, I get this question a lot And I moved here with no degree.

However, I'm very lucky that I'm Canadian and we have a working holiday arrangement with Japan so I could get the working holiday visa.

It's not required that you have a degree for that.

So as long as you have the citizenship of a country that is participating in the working holiday arrangement with Japan, you could move here long term on that visa.

Another option is to use the cultural activities visa.

You can apply for a visa if you want to study some form of Japanese cultural activity.

Martial arts, calligraphy, flower arrangement.

I spent many of my years here in Japan on a student visa while I was going to both Japanese language school and university here.

Do you think it would be hard to relocate to Japan when you're in your 40s?

Not any harder than it would have been if you moved here when you were a teenager or 20?

I would say it would probably have been easier for me to move here now at this age 38, having all the life experience that I do, I don't see any reason that being older would hold you back in any way if you want to move to Japan.