Applied for the Japan Working Holiday Visa (Australian citizens under 30 are eligible) with no pl…
T=0: The Decision
23 years old, Brisbane, barista at a specialty coffee shop, recently finished a design degree I was not using. My Japanese was zero. I had been watching videos of Tokyo for two years while pulling espresso shots.
Applied for the Japan Working Holiday Visa (Australian citizens under 30 are eligible) with no plan beyond "get there." Found a barista job in Shimokitazawa through a Facebook expats group before I landed. Arrived in April 2023 with a 20kg bag and ¥450,000 in savings.
Actually living there, not just visiting.
6 Months Out
The coffee shop in Shimokitazawa has become my community. My Japanese is still terrible but the staff are patient and my colleagues — all Japanese — have adopted me in a way I find difficult to articulate. The language barrier is real. It has not been the obstacle I feared.
“Find the local version of everything — local coffee shops, local izakayas, local gyms. The expat social circuit is available and extremely comfortable. It is also a cage.”