Useful Information Japan
Emergency Services Numbers
Ambulance, Fire, Emergency Rescue 119
Police 110
Coast Guard 118
Drug Overdose & Poison Control Centers
Tokyo Fire Department – (03) 3212-2323
U.S. Air Force Hospital, Yokota (0425) 52-2511, ext. 57740
Osaka Toxicity 0990-50-2499 or (06) 871-9999
You can also call the Poisons center in your home country!
Emergency Medical Interpretation Service
English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Thai
Monday to Friday 5pm – 10pm
Saturday, Sunday and Holidays 9am – 10pm 03-5285-8185
Tokyo English-Speaking Police
General consultations in English
Monday – Friday 8:30am – 5:15pm Telephone (03) 3501-0110
Police Translators(03) 3581-4321
Counselling in English
TELL – Tokyo English Life Line
Free anonymous telephone counselling 9am – 11pm (03) 5774 0992
Chat line from their website Friday, Saturday, Sunday 10:30pm – 2am
Professional Counselling and psychological assessment (03) 4550 1146
Alcoholics Anonymous & 12 Step Programs in Tokyo (in English).
Alcoholics Anonymous – www.aatokyo.org
Al-Anon – Help for friends & families of alcoholics & drug addicts www.al-anontokyo.org
Narcotics Anonymous Japan https://najapan.org/english-information
Japan HIV Center http://www.npo-jhc.com/english.htm
Foreign Women in Japan (Tokyo)
www.fewjapan.com
Narita Airport Information
Tokyo Narita Airport Website – flight arrivals and departures info in English
http://www.narita-airport.jp/en
Japan Driver’s License – Japanese
Everything you need to know to get a Japanese driver’s license! Anyone staying in Japan for more than 12 months who wants to drive legally must obtain a Japanese Drivers License.
www.japandriverslicense.com
MIFA – Meguro International Friendship Association
Holds cooking classes, language classes, festivals, Japanese Speech competitions and many interesting events.
Website: http://mifa.jp/en/
Free Japanese Lessons
FREE online Japanese lessons. Excellent beginner level lessons from NHK. Lessons are available in many languages (Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Malay, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Urdu, Vietnamese)
www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/
Japanese Year Converter
Do you know what year you were born in in the Japanese Calender? This website converts Gregorian calendar years to Japanese Emperor Era years (known as “nengo”).
http://www.allcalendars.net/JapaneseYearConverter.php
Workers Unions in Japan
If you are planning to get a job in Japan it is definitely worth having a look through the General Union website English articles to see how foreign workers are being treated in Japan. As a foreign resident you are definitely more vulnerable than you would be at home. Just the language barrier alone is a massive disadvantage. There are a lot of articles in English on various English language schools you may want to avoid or at least know what you are getting yourself into!
NUGW – The National Union of General Workers
The National Union of General Workers (NUGW) is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) with a large foreign national membership.
Website: www.nugw.org
GU – General Union (has a lot of articles in English)
The General Union is a legally registered Japanese labour union open to all nationalities from all walks of life. The website has information in English, French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese. The General Union represents various foreign workers from factory workers to employees who teach English in language schools, kindergarten, primary, secondary and higher education.
Website: www.generalunion.org
Fukuoka General Union
Website: www.fukuoka.generalunion.org
