Hello! My wife (31F) and I (30M) have been very interested in moving to Japan for a several years now. I would consider it a sabbatical on my part as I’ve been grinding hard with my career since graduating college. I currently work for a company in the states and I’m also working on finishing up an MBA program while keeping up on my Japanese (currently around an N4 level, but working my hardest with my limited schedule to push that closer to N3). Due to this, money won’t be the deciding issue for our move, rather I am concerned on what options might be available for my wife to secure a visa while I dive into a fast paced language school. The language isn’t a passion for her like it is for me, but we both love the culture and slower pace of Kyoto so that will likely be where I begin searching for language schools in a few years. She has a bachelors degree in English, but her passion is jewelry making and would like to see about learning some Japanese jewelry making techniques to round out her existing skills. I want us to be properly informed and prepared for what the most suitable visa is that we could pursue for her when the time comes since she doesn’t fit the language school or skilled work visa buckets. I’m also interested in any information anyone has on apartments in the area suitable for a happy married couple (obviously Gaijin friendly) and language school recommendations if you have any :). I’m planning another holiday to Japan for late next year so I may decide to visit some places in person just to scope things out. Thank you and happy holidays!
Edit: I forgot to mention we have a cute Pomeranian dog that will be coming with us!
3 comments
Short of her getting a work visa or a student visa herself, I can’t think of any way. Dependent Visa isnt available to language school students.
You’ll also want to have tons of savings, finding an apartment that allows a pet are very rare and expensive, finding one thats willing to also rent to foreigners will be even more difficult.
Not impossible but be ready to either search for a very long time or be very far from your school in a probably very expensive, yet old apartment.
The visa questions have already been answered, so I’ll just add: I wouldn’t suggest Kyoto for a “slower pace”, given that for large chunks of the year, it’s absolutely packed with domestic tourists, foreign tourists, and extremely loud whole classes of grade school children on their school trip, not to mention the 1.5 million (yes, million) people that already live there. Kyoto’s only slower placed when you’re seeing pictures of it.
If you and your wife are able to find a jewelry course then she could probably get a cultural activities visa to attend it. I can’t imagine there being many options that aren’t conducted in Japanese though.