X-Pat Files

One thing about coming to a country where the main language is not English, you're either tied to the food that you can read or recognize, or you have to learn to read a certain amount of packaging to avoid sugaring your coffee with baking soda!

This very basic website from Aichi Prefecture, and this one from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, have information about the correct labeling procedure for food that you buy in the supermarket.

For instance, did you know the kanji for "use by date" (消費期限) which is used for perishable food like meat and packaged lunches, is different from the one that is better translated as "best before" (賞味期限) used for canned or frozen goods which last a longer time without deterioration? However, both share the last two kanji, 期限 meaning limit, and so this is one that you should absolutely be looking for when you buy your food.

But how does this help you when you just want to buy cooking oil but you come home with mirin (rice wine)? Click through to our website for some common supermarket brain-teasers and how to solve them - print out the relevant kanji or write them on word cards for handy reference as you are shopping.

Experience Japan’s longest running Circus at Shirakawa Koen, near Fushimi Subway Station for a limited time! For 108 years, the Kinoshita Circus has been touring Japan and delighting audiences with the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of a real big top circus.

Pre-registering your biometric data, and breezing through immigration at the airport is no longer only possible at Narita Airport in Tokyo. Automated gates are now available at Narita, Chubu, and Kansai airports. Read on to learn how to take advantage of this time saver!

Before you set out on the open road this Golden Week, make sure your bases are covered with some sort of road service. You can subscribe to road service through most vehicular insurance plans, but if you can't get road service that way you can always join JAF, the Japanese version of the AAA or similar national car insurance scheme.

British citizens living in Japan who need to make a passport application will no longer be able to do it at the Embassy in Tokyo. Instead, you must send them directly to the Passport Production Centre in Hong Kong.

Traffic infractions in Japan will cost you money, and “points” on your license, and even jail time. For more information, read the article, and then follow the included link to a website that details some of the infractions and penalties associated with them.

Home cooking is becoming more popular as the economy sags, but some people just aren’t used to standing in the kitchen, and others don’t mind cooking but find it hard to come up with new recipe ideas that will fit into their busy schedule.

Enter, the kitchen cheats!

The shelves of Japanese supermarkets are literally lined with boxes and boxes of easy-to-use cooking flavors that one need only add to the prescribed ingredients (listed on the back of the box) in order to have a meal that will go with rice.

These boxes are very easy to use, even if you don’t read Japanese, because the meal is pictured on the front of the box, and ingredients and preparation instructions are also often illustrated on the back. It only takes a little courage to try these boxes once – and you will be addicted for life to these tasty and easy to prepare meals.