Welcome to Japan Life Diary

🌏 Why We Came to Japan

Starting from scratch in a third country was equal parts exciting and overwhelming — navigating visa applications, apartment hunting, language barriers, and cultural differences all at once. Neither of us had family here. Neither of us spoke fluent Japanese when we arrived. We figured it out anyway, one step at a time.

Japan Life Diary was born from that experience. This is a web magazine written specifically for foreigners living in Japan — or anyone dreaming of making Japan their home. We share real stories, honest advice, and practical guides based on our own daily life here in Tokyo. 📖💡

Between us, we speak Japanese, English, Cantonese, Korean, and Mandarin — which means we’ve approached Japan from multiple cultural angles, and we bring all of that perspective to everything we write. We know what it’s like to feel lost in a Japanese government office. We know what it’s like to find an apartment as a foreigner. We know what it’s like to fall completely in love with this country while still occasionally being baffled by it. That’s what this blog is about. 🇯🇵

📝 What We Write About

Everything on Japan Life Diary is written from firsthand experience living as foreigners in Japan. We don’t write about things we haven’t done, eaten, or navigated ourselves. Here’s what you’ll find:

• 🛋️ Housing & Lifestyle — Making the most of Japanese living spaces, with an interior designer’s eye. Small apartments, smart storage, and how to make a Tokyo flat feel like home.
• 👛 Daily Life & Money — Budgeting tips, banking as a foreigner, SIM cards, cashless payments, and smart ways to save in Japan without sacrificing quality of life.
• 🍣 Travel & Local Eats — Hidden gems, local restaurants, onsen towns, and weekend adventures — the Japan that exists beyond the tourist trail.
• 🏮 Language & Culture — Navigating the beautiful and sometimes puzzling world of Japanese culture. Etiquette, phrases, customs, and the moments that make you love Japan even more.
• 📋 Visa & Moving — The practical stuff: how to get a visa, how to find an apartment, what to do at the ward office, and everything you need to actually move to Japan.

👩‍🎨 A Little About Sunny

Sunny is an interior designer from South Korea 🇰🇷 who brought her design sensibility to Tokyo apartment life — and discovered that Japanese minimalism and Korean warmth have more in common than she expected. She writes about housing, lifestyle, food, and the everyday textures of expat life in Japan. She also has extremely strong opinions about コンビニ (convenience store) desserts and considers this a professional qualification.

🎵 A Little About Go

Go is from Hong Kong 🇭🇰 and brings a Cantonese perspective to life in Japan — which means an appreciation for good food, efficient systems, and the art of finding the best coffee within a 10-minute walk of anywhere. He handles the research side of Japan Life Diary and is responsible for what Sunny calls “the unnecessary coffee experiments.” He considers this a compliment.