Working in Japan

My biggest fear was always, that I'd have too little money for all the things I want to do or buy in Japan. Having two little sisters and being the oldest from them, I didn't really expect to get a lot of money from my family and actually, since I wanted to become an adult through this experience, I wanted to do this year on my own. Without any help. I failed a bit because of a mistake made by Momoyama, but if they didn't mess up, I would have managed to live with my own money through the whole year. Very necessary for that was a part-time job.

Starter Information

If you want to work in Japan, there are only two things to keep in mind: 

1) do NOT work in a night-club, hostess bar, etc. Momoyama will have problems, you will have problems and in general, it's just not something to do. I know that some people worked in some night etablissements, but really. Just don't make any problems. It's easier and better for everybody. 

2) Get your working permit ready BEFORE you arrive in Japan. Momoyama will send you a paper to fill out, in case you want to work. Even if you don't plan on working in Japan, just fill it out and give it to the people that check your passport and give you your visa. It will make things easier in case you take just a one-time job or whatever. If you don't work, that's fine, too! Just fill it out and get the permiss in case you work. Once I find all my old documents, I will upload it here for you, too.

 

All the jobs I did were English teaching jobs. That is, what 90 % of the exchange students did. We had some of the Asian students, that already spoke really, really good Japanese work for Hotels, in a Conbini or in an Izakaya. But the pay isn't all that good (between 720 and 900 Yen, I think?) so if you know English, just do that for a bit. It's stress-free, works even if you have lots of classes and it's fun if you are not all too bad with children.

 

Momoyamas part-time jobs

Luckily, Momoyama is very good for part-time jobs! The university itself offers one, even though it doesn't get you much money and I didn't do it myself, other exchange students worked for it. It's called Momotan. It's the universities English school for children. You basically prepare a class, play with children in english and then recieve money. Sadly, I am not sure how much it was but it wasnt't too bad. From time to time, there also were jobs at some middle-schools or ground-schools to go there and introduce your country. You can sign up at the international center for those, but if there are too many people, you might end up not getting the job. They pay also wasn't that good, mostly around 1,500~3,000 yen for 3 hours. But you have the expense of going to the school, so you lose a bit of that money. Still, the experience is really nice. The children love you and are so cute, so I would recommend to do it at least once, if you know even just a tiny bit of Japanese!
If you are there during the summer semester, you might also be able to work at Momoyamas open campus! At least during our semester, we got the chance to work there many times. They have many activities. Depending on your Japanese level they will either send you to do campus tours (Level C or D) or to play some games in english outside (Level A or B). You will also recieve a lunchbox and some green tea! And they pay 820 Yen per hour. Which isn't too bad for that kind of job. It was fun, most of the time. My friends' job was to sit in the universities cafeteria and talk to potential students in English. Fun! =)

Momoyamas Open Campus from June 2014

 Extern part-time jobs

I can not tell you how to get one of the jobs, but I can tell you how I got mine. Maybe that helps you. 

First, there is an Englisch school called Coconuts. The woman is very nice and the job is rather easy. She is always looking for a new teacher, once the old one leaves. For this semesters students (winter2014/summer2015), if you know Marjan, maybe she has still a few jobs left. XD  

I arrived in September 2013, and from February 2014 I worked at her school. Actually, somebody who went to Japanese class with me asked me, if I wanted to take one of her jobs, since she had to leave. And gladly I accepted. I got payed ~1,500 per hour. That also includes the transportation fee to the school. The classes were children from age 4 to 12. I always recieve a nice bag with word-cards in it, that we should learn. And I had to think of games and ways to make the children remember. It really was a nice time and I miss the children.

Another job I sometimes did was for somebody called Wada-san. He might not be the kind of person everybody likes, but since it's a job and you won't spend too much time with him, it's not too bad. His lessons are a bit more demanding. I had to teach children between 4 and 13, but this time, no Japanese was allowed. Which would be okay, if they understood or if we did some exercise. But if you have to introduce a new game, since you are a new teacher... Well, it takes time. But it is all worth it. 4,000 yen for 1,5 hours, and no transportation fee. He will pick you up and bring you back by car. Very comfy. I only got this job as a substitute. Whenever somebody was sick or travelling, I got asked to substitute.

Have you ever noticed the restaurant close to Eleve? It's called Okinawa or Ryukyu or something similar. The owner from that restaurant once come up to me and Tea on the street and asked us if we want to teach children from 2 to 5 some English. And we agreed. Per hour 800 Yen and two hours on friday. You basically only have to sing/dance and play with children. And try to make them repeat English words. Actually, it's very hard to teach them and I wouldn't be surprised if most of you stop after a short time. Because the children want to play a lot and don't listen very well. Even if you talk to them in Japanese and even though the parents are there. But still, playing with them is fun, just that it's hard to make the game English...

If you want, you can share your lesson with your best friend, like I did with Tea! We worked together for most of the lessons in the beginning. Of course that also means, you only get half the payment... But if you just make it that one person works more/is in charge for one of the lessons more and talking mainly in one of them, then it's not that bad! So it's like helping a good friend!

Hello-sensei.com

There is a page called hello-sensei.com. You can find it here: KLICK ME

It is a site where you can register with teaching information, what and who you teach, where and for how much. Then, people can look at your profile and buy your contact information. I NEVER had any unserious students or people who pranked me or anything. They were all nice people, who were eager to study English (or German). 

Downside to it is, that rarely anybody is from Izumi. So most of the time, you have to go all the way to Namba or even further, which takes a lot of money...

Still, I sometimes met people from there and it was always a pleasure. I also got many requests from people (even though I wanted to get 3,000 yen per hour, so that my transportation fee of 1200 yen would be covered), so if you are really in need of money and that platform can help! I also know two English schools that actually look for teachers over that platform and the best part is, you can also teach your native language, not only English. Check it out once!

Dining out in Izumi

Remembering my first few months, I have to say I didn't really cook a lot. And to be honest, it is not recommended to always eat ramen from the conbini... So this post is for all the restaurants and cafés in Izumi, that I tried out and would recommend or got recommended from friends!

Yoshinoya

If you've ever been to Japan, you probably know Gyuudon. There are three famous stores. Yoshinoya, Sukiya and Matsuya. In Tokyo it seems that Sukiya is pretty strong, but in the Kansai area it's Yoshinoya you can see everywhere. If you want to eat cheap, you go there. They are delicious, fast and fill you better than any regular McDonalds bruger. And aside from Gyuudon, they also have other delicious food. To make it more healthy, you can add a salad+miso soup set and it won't cost you more than 400 yen! (regular bowl of Gyuudon)

You can find Yoshinoya at the station, if you go to where the main shopping mall is and take the escalator in front of it. There are other restaurants there, too!

Saizeriya

They call shops like this "family restaurant". Because many families go there, since it's cheap and probably because it's acceptable for children to be loud there. But fear not, if you go during the evening, it's really lovely! They have something that gets close to what we westerners call "Pizza". It might be a mini-version of it, but it actually is delicious! And cheap! 399 yen for the mini pizza. And if you don't like pizza, they also have loads of other declicious food. My personal favourite was the italian hamburger - a hamburger patty with tomato sauce, cheese, some corn, egg on it, sauce and three potato wedgies. Adding small rice to it, it is a very filling and delicious meal. The burger alone is 499 yen, the small rice is ~160 yen. Don't remember clearly, but it's not bad. If you want to go to drink, it also only costs 180 yen for however much you want to drink during your stay there.

Basically, this "italian" restuarant is good if you want to get full! The only bad thing is the mexican (?) music that they play in the store... Not that I would care, when I am there with my lovely friends. ;)

You can find this lovely restaurant at the main station, as well! It is across the main shopping hall, in the same building as Seria, Nitori etc. You only have to pass JUPITER and there it is. I think it is open until 23:00.

あったか亭 Bentou store

If you don't feel like eating out, I can only recommend you the lovely Bentou store that's close to Eleve! The people there are very nice and the food is so good! Just thinking about it makes me want to eat it... They have a variety of bentous, basically everything you can ask for. If you want it cheap, you can eat oyakodon (chicken meat and egg with onions on rice) for ~350 yen or if you want a proper bentou, they have it with all kinds of meats, vegetables, fish etc, starting from 450 yen to ~900 yen. My bentous with fried shirmps normally cost around 500 yen, so check the store out!

It is located along the road to Momoyama on the right side before the big intersection. So you have to walk a bit, but it's worth it. And the bentous are all there to see, so you don't have to be able to read japanese to go there! (If you write this into google maps, you can find it, too: Ōsaka-fu, Izumi-shi, Karakunichō, 1 Chome−9 手作り弁当あったか亭Ａ)

KO:HI:KAN

There are two KO:HI:KANs at Izumi. One of them is hard to miss, since it's directly at our university. You can find it at St. Johns hall. The other one is a bit different. If you go to Book Off in Izumi, you have to leave it from directly downstairs and walk a bit around it to find the second Kohikan. If you type this into google maps, you can find it, too: 5 chome-7-5 Ibukino. It is across the Konami Fitness Center!
The good thing about this café is, that they have delicious food and drinks. Even for those who do not like coffee (like me), there are a few things you can drink. The only downside is, that it's a bit expensive. Like every coffee shop. My cocoa float or other drinks are ~550 yen. Since I only at there once, I can't tell you the prices for the snacks, but the toast was very delicious and what I saw on other peoples plates didn't look bad either. I enjoyed my date with my boyfriend there a lot. It's very comfortable and nice. And if you want to study there, nothing stops you from that either! How aout buying a nice book at book off and then going there to eat something nice? ^^


 Might be continued as soon as I can think of more very delicious places & their names! =D

Making your room yours - buying equipment

When I first moved in, my room felt kind of like a hotel room. Nice and clean, but not really like my own. But since I planned on staying there for a year, I knew what to do to make it mine: personalize it.
All the rooms in Eleve look the same, but as soon as you enter somebody elses room, most of the time you can see a part of their character as well. You can see, what they made of their room. For example me an my lovely neighbour. We had a party once for my birthday, where I actually planned on starting the party off in my room and as soon as there are too many people, we could spread the party to her room as well. But the party in my room never really took off, so we changed places and in the end, the only (very crowded) party room was her room. I think that's because my room is more like a living-room. You go there to talk, eat, drink and relax. But for her, her room had the right feeling. There was music, people drinking and dancing. Even though there were still the same people, the whole atmosphere was different.

So in this post, I want to tell you where to get cheap but useful things, to make your room mor comfy and "yours".

The first place to go to is called "DAISO". It is a 100 yen shop. That means all the articles are 100 yen, excluding taxes. So right now, the real price of everything is 108 yen. There are a few exceptions that cost 210 yen or 300 yen, but that's very rare and you see the price very clearly on the products, if they are not 108 yen.
If I tell you it's a 100 yen shop, you might think the products will be bad or cheap. But in reality, eerybody gets their stuff there. There are very cute things, very nicely designed and even though the quality might be poor, nobody cares because 1) it's cheap and 2) we are only staying there for a year... It's going to be thrown away soon anyway.

What you can find in DAISO is actually very hard to answer. At the front, there are the seasonal things. In summer there were beach-things like water guns or sun hats and stuff like that. In winter, there are warm socks and gloves. So basically, there is always something new to discover in DAISO. Then there is a very useful corner that has stationary. Folders, notebooks, pens, markers, erasers,... Everything you need will be there. Cute, cheap and unresistable. I bought more in that store than I needed and definitely more than I should, but I regret nothing. So if you go to Japan, don't bother to bring any note books or pens... It's better to buy them just there.

Another big area is the kitchen utensils. There are cheap glasses and plates, bowls and also everything you need to cook! In Eleve there probably won't be anything for you. But because of DAISO you can easily equip your kitchen with the stuff you need. The only thing you might want to buy in a proper supermarket or at NITORI is a frying pan or pot. The ones at DAISO are very, very tiny.

Next is the area with the bathroom stuff. Ranging from cosemtica to useful stuff like shower curtains, soap dispensers and toothbrushes -  you can find anything there. And most of it is very cute. Of course your room will actually have a shower curtain. But I found it really boring to enter an all-beige bathroom, so I pepped it up a bit. It's easy to do, if you only have to spend 108 yen for it!

Other smaller but still very useful areas are the ones with random baskets, the whole cleaning area and games. Really, if you need something, check DAISO first.
There is a second 100 yen shop called SERIA. It has mostly the same as DAISO, but I think the designs are cuter and more feminine. And they are the only shop that has their own Disney area! There you can buy cooking utensils in Disney design, as well as cute wrappings, stickers etc. and everything for only 108 yen! Definitely go there as well, just to get a tiny overview of the differences. I especially liked their nail polish, mirrors and glasses more than those from DAISO.

You can find both stores at the train station Izumichuo. DAISO is pretty much un-passable. It's in the building where CO-OP is. You won't be able to miss it. Seria on the other hand is inside the building of Saizeriya, the family restaurant. It's located on the second floor, so go and check it out!

For all other things, I think you will find them in Izumiya, the main supermarket, but not as cheap as in DAISO. And if you need a proper cushion or some soft matress additionally to the very thin futon that Momoyama Daigaku provides, you probably should go and check out NITORI, in the samme building as Seria. It also has bedsheets. The normal S size fits the futon-set that we recieve.

If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask!

I actually spent around 5,000 yen at DAISO to get my life in Izumi started and make my room comfy with all the stuff I needed. Of course I spent a lot more money at DAISO the rest of the year as well, but the first basic needs were covered with that 5,000 yen. (including the rather expensive 1,500 frying pan I bought at izumiya.)