This is extremely belated but after five and a half years, my time in Japan is finally over.
As I was doing the Okinawa recap, I tried to think about what to do with this blog. I'm definitely not deleting it, but I highly doubt I can blog like before. So for now, I guess I'll just have to say goodbye. And I'm not good at goodbyes so this will be a fairly short post.
If I ever have something Japan-related to say (or if/when I go on a trip to Japan because I do intend to see my friends), I will definitely update this blog, but otherwise, there won't be any new posts.
Lastly (and perhaps more practically), I will be creating an additional section for the guidebook and emailing it to everyone who downloaded a copy when I'm done. It's basically going to be a guide for moving back based on my experiences.
For now, here's a to-do checklist that I made and used. I hope it helps if you're thinking of moving back:
Car
- Break insurance (fairly easy, although be careful about the day of last payment)
- Sell car (I sold it back to the guy I bought it from so that was very convenient)
Home
- Inform housing agent and pay the penalty fees.
- Hire a moving company and Pack (If you're going with Yamato Transport, like I did, then you should budget time for them to deliver the materials to you. I'm not sure how long other companies take)
- Break the internet contract (the most complicated since I had to liase with my housing agent as well)
- Stop the water
- Stop the gas
- Stop the electricity
Note: You will either need to have cash on hand or be around for a few days to make the last payment.
- Set up mail forwarding if you have an address to forward mail to.
Job & Other legal stuff
- Inform Immigration that I've left my job
- Inform prefectural government that I'm leaving and close all related accounts (insurance, pension, etc). The specific paperwork is: 『住民票の転出届』, 『国民年金の手続き』,『国民健康保険の脱退手続き』 』, and『個人番号通知カードまたは個人番号カードの返納』
Do these last
- Close your bank accounts
- Cancel your phone contract
And that's it (according to my notes). Goodbye for now and thank you for reading!
