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Spouse visa - confused... what should I do?

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Rather than disengaging from this tread I am a bit surprised that "old hands" have not told you what , no if/but, but WILL happen. They might not own a car in Japan (same as me 2003-2008) and don't know what happens.
This is for you as well for others you may be entertaining the same ideas.

Parking:
For car ownership (and motorbike) you MUST have a parking spot to keep the vehicle on it. In the sticks, they may let you have a K-car (under 680cc) if you have a house but normally without a dedicated car spot, registration of a vehicle is impossible without car space.

Kei cars are under 660cc....not 680cc

There is no 車庫証明 requirement for bikes.

Parking has to be paid, in Tokyo Shinjuku it's 800-1,000$ a month. For your car + motorbike probably 1,500$ a month (multiply by 12 and you get a yearly cost of just keeping the vehicles off the street, not even moving them jor insuring them).

Correcting your misinformation is turning into a full-time job.

The average cost of a parking spot in Shinjuku is under 36,000 yen.


Say, you won't live there. If you are in a village or some distant suburb, it may go for your both vehicles not less than 100$ a month. If you live in a place of similar convenience as, say, Hornsby in Sydney (Tokyo equivalent would be, say, Saitama or Chiba) then you are at ~500$ a month just for parking.

In "villages" properties typically include one or two parking spots. Monthly rentals can be had for under 5,000 yen in many places.

Insurance:
Then add, insurance (as a new arrival, you will be paying the highest price). For my 1st car (Toyota Vitz (known to you as Yaris) it was 1,400$ a year

You got robbed.

For a new policy, mid-sized car, commuting, first year, liability only:

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1434149596.872572.jpg


Second year:

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1434149611.139518.jpg


.

The bike would be 600$ at least.

Nowhere near it.

First year:

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1434149934.436561.jpg


Second year:

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1434149962.554264.jpg



Insurance then is 2,000$ a year for both.

More like 84,000 total for one mid-sized car and one 250cc bike for the first year.

Registration (car tax)
Registration, would be another at least 1,500$ a year for both.

The actual figures for car tax

Tax on a 250cc bike is 3,600 yen.

No-******-where near $1500/year.

Technical inspection of vehicles older than 3 years
Yearly inspection of the cars would be another 1,200$, at least, for both.

The 250cc bike has no shaken. He can do "user shaken" even on big bikes for 25,000 yen.

Cars vary, but a mid-sized car can be done for about 60-70,000.

Depending on the age of the car, the inspection is every TWO years....not annually. Did you even know that? You didn't, did you? Somebody else handles that for you?

Where does it leave you at?
So, with the best of luck, just to own the vehicles you are at nearly at 6,000 a year, with no petrol,service, tyres, tollways.
If the vehicles were teleported to Japan at no cost, that is where you are. 6,000$ a year.
It can go up, depending on city council and cc the vehicles have. The previous calculation can easily go to 10,000$ a year altogether for a car with say 2,000cc and a bike with over 1,000cc.

I've already shown your facts and figures to be so bogus that I'm not even going to bother dissecting this tripe.


Edit: your Oz driving license will be recognized in Japan after you have been in the country for more than 6 months.

Now you're saying he can't change to a Japanese license until he has been here six months? Want to show us where it says that? Or address your oversimplified instructions that he just show up with his Australian license?

You really really really really need to refrain from sharing "facts" with people here. Or at least try just ONCE to share one that isn't completely wrong.
 
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Humbug, you need a minder assigned by social center to look after you. You can't walk around yourself.

As perfect a case of the pot calling the kettle black as we have ever seen...

I leave you with your advisers who have to google to see what parking is

You are absolutely hilarious! You think so highly of your absolutely BOGUS information about the cost of parking...wrong by a factor of 3~4... that you turn your nose up and try to act superior for "knowing" something like that right off the top of your head while the guy with the actual facts and figures got them from Google!



And don't forget an armour when fighting inspection prices and taxes.

If anybody tries to charge him the bogus prices and taxes you pulled out of your rear end I hope he fights them over it!


Enjoy "inaka", you are not for better.

We can't all work in the Shinjuku Mitsui Building.
 
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Don't bs, I am telling what I am paying, that has to be paid, not googled.
And yes, in Shinjuku, parking was 800-1,200$ a month.
Have you been to Shinjuku? Know where it is? Google it.

Yes, I presented my Oz license and passport, they looked and found I had been in the country for more than 6 monts, sent me to listen some lecture about traffic for 2 hours and at the end, handed over my Japanese license. Just like that.
 
Don't bs, I am telling what I am paying, that has to be paid, not googled.
And yes, in Shinjuku, parking was 800-1,200$ a month.
Have you been to Shinjuku? Know where it is? Google it.

You're paying the Illiterate Gaijin Tax.

Did you not see the link to oodles and oodles of monthly parking spaces in Shinjuku? The average is under 36,000.


Yes, I presented my Oz license and passport, they looked and found I had been in the country for more than 6 monts, sent me to listen some lecture about traffic for 2 hours and at the end, handed over my Japanese license. Just like that.


You said he had to be here six months before be could change it. That is not true. Did you not also have to present a translation of your Australian license?
 
Glen: Whilst normally, I would address all of your talking points... but quite frankly, you're an uptight **** head who doesn't deserve a response.
Sticks and stones. This sort of juvenile response pretty much repeats what we see on discussion forums from people who have only one thing in mind: hearing only the rosy good news that it's 100% possible to do what they want, instead of weighing the pluses and minuses. Your little jab doesn't bother me in the slightest. Take my points seriously, dude. They were seasoned responses meant to open your eyes.

(Now, if you are true to form like most people who post like that, you'll come back with another retort instead of apologize or ask for clarification. I'd much prefer to give advice to someone who takes a realistic view on trying to come here when they are in a pitiful situation such as yours. Seriously! Why the hell else do you think I spent so much energy responding? I have no investment in you.)
 
What, city council robbing me with their official documents and bills? They do that for profit?
7 years ago the rule was 6 months in the country for converting DL. It was in English.
First year one can use national or international DL but not after that.

Are you making spread sheets about my movements and actions? Stalking?
 
What, city council robbing me with their official documents and bills? They do that for profit?
7 years ago the rule was 6 months in the country for converting DL. It was in English.


It has never been the case that one is not allowed to change unless they have been here six months.

First year one can use national or international DL but not after that.

Ohhhh....You almost got something right! So close! Keep trying!

Are you making spread sheets about my movements and actions? Stalking?

Pop quiz time: How many buildings are there in Shinjuku that have a 55th floor?

You can't tell us where you work and then be surprised that we know where you work.
 
Mike: Those prices look cheap :D Maybe I'll get a 3rd bike later on :p
Think_too_little: looks like you are getting ripped off haaard lol
Glen: I was actually being a bit too hard on myself. You took this as an opportunity to twist the knife. You're a text book example of an elitist with tall poppy syndrome. But you take it one step further to kick someone while they are down. You must be a miserable person outside the internet.
 
"More like 84,000 total for one mid-sized car and one 250cc bike for the first year."

You are like someone in Peshavar who has access to the Internet but has never seen a car near his cave.
84,000Y is just above half what I paid in insurance for 1.3L Toyota Yaris. Third year it came down to just over 100,000Y.
And look in the bikes: the cheapest option could be so basic that hardly anyone would take it. 600$ is on the cards there.
Actually I may try what you do: get Google anesthesia and see life while stoned. However, is it how illicit drugs work? Would I get hooked to that alternative reality? And go with a megaphone shouting to whoever wants to listen down on the ground that parking for 800$ a month is someone's halucination, that they can get parking for 30,000Y instead of 80,000Y just if they google?

2015jrefmitsui01.jpg


Google the view from Tocho, it's fantastic just not any better than from my desk. Not everyone can work at Mitsui 55th floor, true, especially those with no other skills than googling.

2015jrefmitsui02.jpg


A Peshavar boy also sent me a message telling me he had googled a deal for parking, 35,000Y a month. Poor boy, got lost when I told him that parking is "car keeping", cars are stacked im a dedicated building or underground, you have to request the car 1 hour before you need her so they can bring it to the road. Seeing how confused he is I stopped short of telling him there are robots (he would have no idea what robot in that context might be, he would think an android walking with my car keys and driving a car in/out the parking), mechanics, conveyers...nothing like just locking the car in car space and walking away.
 
It has never been the case that one is not allowed to change unless they have been here six months.

Look at this rubbish from the net:

If your license was issued in one of these countries;

Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Taiwan and South Korea.

And you can prove residency in that country for a minimum of 3 months after license issuance you are not required to take either the written test or road test to convert your license.

You must apply in person to the driver's license center in your prefecture. A high level of Japanese ability or native Japanese speaker accompaniment is strongly recommended.


It says 3 months but it was definitely 6 monts, to prevent backpackers and those on 3-months stay without visa getting the license just for fun, to show off when they go back home. Nothing wrong with that other than clogging the offices with requests for licenses that would be only a souvenir from Japan.
And last line A high level of Japanese ability or native Japanese speaker accompaniment is strongly recommended.
is total rubbish. Not a word of Japanese was spoken, all staff had good English.
Life is different on the ground, Google has degenerated people, Peshavar boys from the caves have access to the same books as those physically present at the Harward Library...but what they can do with that ?
 
Actually I may try what you do: get Google anesthesia and see life while stoned. However, is it how illicit drugs work? Would I get hooked to that alternative reality? And go with a megaphone shouting to whoever wants to listen down on the ground that parking for 800$ a month is someone's halucination, that they can get parking for 30,000Y instead of 80,000Y just if they google?

Well, they would need to have not embraced a life of ignorance and illiteracy...but absolutely they can get parking in Shinjuku for 30,000 insread of 80,000 if they can read and can speak enough to make a phone call. You calling me a Peshavar and sticking your fingers in your ears going "lalalalala-I-don't-hear-you" don't make it any less true.



A Peshavar boy also sent me a message telling me he had googled a deal for parking, 35,000Y a month. Poor boy, got lost when I told him that parking is "car keeping", cars are stacked im a dedicated building or underground, you have to request the car 1 hour before you need her so they can bring it to the road. Seeing how confused he is I stopped short of telling him there are robots (he would have no idea what robot in that context might be, he would think an android walking with my car keys and driving a car in/out the parking), mechanics, conveyers...nothing like just locking the car in car space and walking away.

Again, more of your blinkered ignorance easily dispelled:

See the ones that have the 平置き marked? (Forgot you're illiterate... the ones with the orange boxes filled in). Those are all ground level parking, no robots, no waiting an hour for a machine to bring your car down. All in Shinjuku, all around 30,000 yen. Whether you would choose to use them or not is irrelevant. The fact is that one can park a car on the ground level in Shinjuku for about 30,000 per month.....lock the car and just walk away.

If you choose to pay an extra $6,000 per year in parking costs to be illiterate, that is your choice. But it doesn't mean you get to spread misinformation unchallenged.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1434162339.778626.jpg
 
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Look at this rubbish from the net:

If your license was issued in one of these countries;

Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Taiwan and South Korea.

And you can prove residency in that country for a minimum of 3 months after license issuance you are not required to take either the written test or road test to convert your license.

You must apply in person to the driver's license center in your prefecture. A high level of Japanese ability or native Japanese speaker accompaniment is strongly recommended.


It says 3 months but it was definitely 6 monts, to prevent backpackers and those on 3-months stay without visa getting the license just for fun, to show off when they go back home. Nothing wrong with that other than clogging the offices with requests for licenses that would be only a souvenir from Japan.

Now you're just embarrassing yourself by displaying a misunderstanding of the English.

The foreign license has to have been issued at least three months prior to attempting to convert the license in Japan. It says NOTHING about how long someone must be in Japan before they are allowed to convert the license.
 
I pay 22,900¥ per month for parking in my building in Minatomirai, Yokohama... Which I'm pretty sure isn't the sticks.

Takes about 3-5 minutes for the robot to bring down my car.

Don't have any idea why OP wants to spend the same money to bring cars here and do a job he hates which pays poorly as he would to just bring his girl to his home country where he states he can easily make 80K per year doing a job he appears to enjoy. I haven't heard any reason aside from saving money which brings him to Japan, and a few moments of considering the long term impact on his finances of each option should have disabused him of the idea that any of this makes fiscal sense.

Good luck, OP, I get the feeling you'll need it.
 
Now you're just embarrassing yourself by displaying a misunderstanding of the English.

The foreign license has to have been issued at least three months prior to attempting to convert the license in Japan. It says NOTHING about how long someone must be in Japan before they are allowed to convert the license.

True, my bad, it does not say. Official site says:
Documents to submit 必要書類
  1. Foreign driving license
  2. A copy of both sides of your foreign driving license.
  3. An official Japanese translation of your foreign driving license (from JAF or a foreign embassy / consulate).
  4. Passport (all passports, including old ones containing stamps indicating dates of departure and entry ).
  5. A copy of your passport (pages showing your photo, issue & expiration date, and visa) and a copy the photo page from your old passport (if applicable).
  6. Your alien registration card (ARC)* and a copy of the front & back of the card.
  7. One photograph – frontal photo of head (no hat) & shoulders, with a white background, measuring 3cm by 2.4cm, taken within 6 months.
  8. Any current or expired Japanese license(s).
  9. Depending upon the country, additional items may be required.
* If your ARC is in process a "Certification of Information Recorded on Foreign Resident Registration File" (登録原票記載事項証明) issued by your city hall / ward office is also accepted.
That is where they check for how long you have been in the country. I remember bringing 2 passports, the expired one on which I entered Japan and the current one. The clerk flipped through them for 10-15 minutes, forth and back. Prior to going there, a coleague found on some government site that 6 months were required so I was not surprised or puzzled what the official was doing through my passports.
Does it not make sense to you? Out of 15 million tourists if only 50 thousand of them (after someone like you told them they can go off the street and demand Japanese driving license) went for it, just to show off back home, would not that be unnecessary drain on government resources?
But, to think like that, one has to be in touch with life, not via google.

Again, my Peshawar boy with Internet access, having not been anywhere out of his cave, also googled out what you did. But, on the ground, it was what I have gone through, not what he had googled. He also corrected my spelling: it is not Peshavar, it is Peshawar. How pedant he is, he should be sitting on the 55th floor instead of making bombs out of fertilizer in his cave..
 
True, my bad, it does not say.
Does it not make sense to you? Out of 15 million tourists if only 50 thousand of them (after someone like you told them they can go off the street and demand Japanese driving license) went for it, just to show off back home, would not that be unnecessary drain on government resources?

I said tourists can go off the street and demand Japanese drivers licenses? I don't remember saying anything of the kind.

Unlike you, I understand that the situation can't possibly arise because tourists don't get alien registration cards.... which they would need to get a license. You just got finished reading that yourself. You couldn't make the connection? Or was it just more trouble with inadequate English comprehension skills?
 
wonko, thats probably what will end up happening. I'm still pissed off that the aussie visa is so expensive. I could easily ship my car to jp for less than that.

Financially speaking though, despite having to spend 10 grand for a visa, over a couple of years earning 80k, i would have forgotten all about it. Using those 2 years I can get back into studying japanese to pass the paper for a mechanic/whatever.

Even if I decided to skip that route, I still wouldn't be moving for another 6 months at least.
 
Googling Shinjuku parkings, my Peshawar boy with Internet access, also found parking spots for 35,000Y. He did not understand that 80,000Y parking was in my building, not 2km walk from it.
To him parking was parking. What a fundamental lack of connection with reality.
However, he unintentionally did one good thing: now it can bee seen that parking could be had for less than 800$, yaay! Bring 5 cars to Japan, not one!
 
Financially speaking though, despite having to spend 10 grand for a visa, over a couple of years earning 80k, i would have forgotten all about it. Using those 2 years I can get back into studying japanese to pass the paper for a mechanic/whatever.

Now you're talking sense. The Aussie government will neither know nor care if you move to Japan to spite their exorbitant fees. You, however, will definitely suffer if that's the only reason.
 
English skills? That's what my Peshawar boy with Internet access has too. But that has not gotten him out of he cave or any closer to reality.
You said there is no requirement for time in Japan. I said there is and if I were in Japan 5 months 29days when I applied for DL, they would not issue it, they will say come tomorrow when it is 6 months.
Why did they look through all my passports, I had the alien card, why?

To try to satisfy themselves that you had been in Australia for at least three months after you received your license. Australian licenses don't show the date of issue.

There is no requirement that a person be in Japan a certain amount of time before they can change to a Japanese license. A non-tourist could arrive one day, get their ARC the next day, and change to a Japanese license the day after that if they wanted to.. Why would they make someone on a year-long visa wait six months to change their license?

I'm not the least bit offended or insulted by being called or compared to a Peshawar, but you are quite obviously using the term with the intent to insult me and to show disrespect to Peshawars. If you can't have a likely exchange of ideas without resorting to such tactics, you may find your ability to continue participating in the forum curtailed.
 
Of course I suffer... but what other choice to I have?

Stay in Oz where you get paid well and like the work. Spend a few thousand dollars for the visa, you can afford it.

Make the best of what you have and learn to be happy with the life you make.
 
I'm closing this for a while, seems tempers are running high. Gentlemen, it's weekend, for heaven's sake!
 
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