Hi all, my partner and I (and our pet rabbit) will be moving to Tokyo in Sept. I’ll be transferring offices with my current company from US, so they’ll be handling my work visa. My partner will be enrolling in JP lang school, and getting a student visa for that. I taught eikaiwa in Saitama in 2007-2008, and am excited to go back with a better salary and more reasonable work schedule… and better language skills. 🙂
Anyway, I feel very out of the loop as far as what the various parts of Tokyo are considered to be like these days. We’re not a straight couple, so if there are any non-shinjuku 2chome areas that are considered lbgbt-associated, I’d be very interested! I’ve heard Nakano’s a bit of a “gayborhood”, but I don’t know how true that advice was. But we don’t wanna live in a night club. 😛
Ideally, somewhere that’s not the most expensive, within about 30 min of Meguro (my office), with relatively modern apts would be great. Bonuses for things like nearby rabbit resources (e.g. there’s a rabbit pet store / supplies / services like nail clipping place near Nakano station, actually), cute cafes, anything lgbt, stuff like that.
Thank you for any advice!!
3 comments
I’d move to any ward that recognizes same-sex partnerships — ie: Setagaya, Shibuya, Adachi, Nakano, etc. I think it just passed in Musashino, too.
[Full list here.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_same-sex_unions_in_Japan)
I’ve lived in various Tokyo wards all my life, IMO nowadays most of Tokyo 23 wards is pretty chill on LGBT, foreign people etc. Meguro-Ku is a nice place to live that is also quite liberal, Minato-Ku has lots of foreigners but pretty expensive, Shibuya-Ku is very central with everything (but tbh everything like cafes restaurants shopping is close when you live in Tokyo). Bunkyo and Taito is close to Akihabara and Kaminarimon and places like that, Setagaya is mostly residential area and quite similar to Meguro.
Suginami (havent lived there) Im pretty sure has Koenji which is very young people area with thrift shops bars etc. Everything considered I would probably recommend anywhere in Suginami Meguro or Setagaya because it’s relatively cheaper with loads of young people that flock there and has an artsy vibe.
Nice!
I also brought my Pet rabbit from another country into Japan.
Was one hell of a ride, but I made it. Sadly she passed away in 2015.
Rabbits are fun, I trained mine and let her free roam in my apartment, but I had to cover everything, even the walls I had to put protection. She chewed everything lol.
You gonna hire a special company to take care of the documents needed to bring your rabbit into Japan? Or you will do everything by yourself?