Long story short, my Son's mom and family are moving to Japan. Her husband has/had dual citizenship in Japan but he is coming over to work for the Department of Defense on the base in Yokosuka so they are getting visas through the DoD. Pending the outcome of our court case there is a chance my son will be allowed to move which will force me to attempt to move also if I want to maintain regular visitation with my son.
I'm interested in getting some feedback on the possibility of longterm visas. I'm 30M and a mechanical engineer in a niche field designing industrial food processing equipment. I currently own my own company and do contract design work. I would say I'm highly skilled, especially in my niche field. I've done a lot of project management, managing/training engineers, estimating, etc.
It seems like the most reasonable path would be to get a Japanese language school visa for 2 years, and then after that hope I can find full time employment that would sponsor me for a work visa? What are the odds of that being possible? After two years of language school would it be reasonable to assume that my language skills would be good enough to make employment possible in an engineering or similar role?
The other option would be to come over on a 6 month digital nomad visa or two separate 3 month tourist visas, but that's really not ideal from a visitation standpoint or just lifestyle in general. I assume on a real visa I would be able to get "real" housing but on a short term visa like one of these, will I be able to rent a 2 bedroom apartment at reasonable rates or will I be stuck with hotel/airbnb only or much higher rates for short term?
I ride motorcycles a lot so would ideally like to have one in Japan also, which I assume with a working visa wouldn't be a problem, but what about with a short term visa? Would it be possible to own a motorcycle and leave it in storage when I'm not in the country or am I stuck renting if I want one?
At a glance the area around Yokosuka seems very military oriented, should I be looking to live somewhere farther away from the base and commute over for visitation if I didn't want to be in a military town vibe?
I have never been to Japan before, but have traveled a decent bit. I appreciate any feedback!
by crazy5179