So we’re half way through our second month, here in Japan, and I thought I would summaries the first month.

We arrived here in Japan October 10:e and spent our first 3 days in an hotel near to the Hon-Atsugi station. During those first days we had to fix quite a lot of things to get settled in Japan. we looked for an apartment and signed all the needed papers, which was quite a lot. We also opened up a bank account so that we could pay our rent and bills trough a Japanese account.

On the third day we had all the papers signed, yea it really took that long to sign them all, and we could move in to our apartments. We also had to buy all the needed house equipment, like beds, sheets and kitchenware.

I think the first week was the one we spent the most amount of money. Roughly around 250´000 yen (ca €2350) was spent. But after that we also had bills like our health insurance, which is obligatory, to pay. The cost for that is 1400 yen a month.

Then we also had to sign up for a Japanese SIM card, for our phones, and that was a cost of around 4000 yen a month.

All in all I think I spent around 300´000 yen (ca €2800) my first month.

So for others planing on becoming an exchange student in Japan I would recommend to have a good budget and be ably to communicate in Japanese, which we had problems with since we hadn’t studied the languages before we came here.

All the best,
Jonas