Permanent Residency Application Submitted

Click to enlarge to see chart of submitted items.

As of July the 9th I've lived and worked in Japan for a whole 10 years. Big pat on the back for me, I'm officially one of those tired looking gaijin slumped at the bar in Golden Gai. People have been surprised that I can use "chopstick" about 3,500 times and I finally understand after being told 400 times that Japan has 4 seasons.

So to make housing loans easier down the line I decided to get my 永住権 or permanent residency.
I looked up the new points system chart and can see that I have enough points to meet the 70 required.

40 pts: from being age 38 and earning plenty of money
20 pts: from working in Japan for 10 years
10 pts: from having a degree

Here's what I submitted this morning at the Shinagawa middle of nowhere immigration centre:

1. Application form
2. 1 photo attached to application form with tiny bulldog clip
3. Certificate of residence (住民票)
4. Residence tax proof of payment certificate for the last 3 years
5. Proof of your guarantor's income for the last year.
6. Certificate of employment
7. 3 years of certificate of income and withholding tax
8. Letter of guarantee, signed by guarantor (wife).
9. Letter of recommendation written by hand - not required, but helpful.
10. Copy of your bank statement - not required, but helpful.
11. Colour copy of property deeds
12. Colour copy of degree certificate
13. Colour copy of residency card from and back
14. Colour copy of passport
15. Colour copy of all family member passports on one sheet

NOTE: Certificate of 'registered matters' (外国人登録原票記載事項証明書
gaikokujin touroku genpyo kisai jiko shoumeisho) was recently discontinued with the introduction of those new residency cards and now the 住民票 will do.

NOTE: I never got around to the 'Letter stating the reason you want to apply, in Japanese.'

NOTE: I was going to submit the family register 戸籍謄本 too, but I forgot to pick it up yesterday. What's on that that isn't on the 住民票 anyway?

NOTE: There are points if you have the Japanese proficiency JLPT level 1. I probably should have submitted proof of Japanese ability.

NOTE: I should have submitted proof of all volunteer work I've done. Japanese blogs say that stuff helps.

NOTE: Kuyakusho told me income tax payment certificate 所得課税証明書 / shotoku kazei shoumeisho is the same as 住民税の課税証明書  jyuminzei no kazei shoumeisho and wouldn't give it to me. So I only submitted 3 years of 住民税の課税証明書  jyuminzei no kazei shoumeisho.

NOTE: For bank statements I copied one 通帳 from Mizuho bank showing dates as 2004, and another recent 通帳 from SMBC showing the massive loan for a house we just got in 2014, ten years later. Shinsei bank that I use for my monthly pay is internet only, and totally awesome for a regular bank because they have free bank transfers, good forex rates, and free ATM withdrawals.

NOTE: My wife was my guarantor, she has no current employer so no certificate of employment.

NOTE: Did not supply map to my house.

NOTE: Permanent residency application submitted on Friday, July the 18th 2014.

Tips:

1. Doors at the middle of nowhere Shingawa immigration centre open at 8:30am. At 8:30am there's usually a queue of about 50 people all after different things. When the doors open everyone runs in different directions to where they need to be. Be near the front of the queue and run upstairs to counter B.

2. Counter B is for all visa application stuff. Get to the counter before 9am and you collect a number.

3. With any luck you have a low enough number to be in the first flight of people being served. Write your address on a postcard, say thank you and you could be out of there by 9:10.

*** 2014/12/05 UPDATE ***
Got a letter from the immigration centre asking for:
1) Wife's Kosseki Tohon (戸籍謄本)
2) 3 years of tax statements including this year.

I'm sure I sent this stuff in the July application, but asking for this stuff rather than just failing the application is a great sign. Went straight down to the ward office, got the requirements, and sent back.

*** 2014/12/15 UPDATE ***
Phoned up the immigration centre to ask how the application is going. Bloke said: "Daibu susunde imasu ne, kongetsu-chu ni kekka ha deru to omou". Very promising!

*** 2014/12/22 UPDATE ***
Getting impatient so phoned up again. Bloke said: "Shinsei ha saisyuusteki na joutai desu. Koko ha 26nichi made kedo, girigiri nennnai ni todoku to omou"

*** 2014/12/25 UPDATE ***
Went to take the wrapping paper rubbish out on Christmas Day, and what a Christmas present in the post box! Postcard telling me to come to the immigration centre to pick up my permanent residence arrived!

*** 2014/12/26 UPDATE ***
Picked up my permanent residence card:
1) Arrived at the immigration centre at 11am
2) Got 8,000 yen's worth of revenue stamps at family mart
3) No queue so handed postcard, passport and gaijin card straight in at the counter
4) 5 minutes wait
5) Picked up old gaijin card with hole in it, new gaijin card with "永住者" on it, and passport.

Questions:
1) So now what happens if I leave Japan? The permanent residency is held in my gaijin card. But when you leave Japan you have to hand that in.

Kie's prediction for the Crossfit Open 2012

This is just a prediction for fun

*** Post 2012 Open Update ***
Updated with actual WODs and comments

Prediction Workout 12.1
10 min AMRAP of:
15 toes to bar
25 push-ups
35 box jumps

Equivalent Workout 12.3
Complete as many rounds as possible in 18 mins of:
15 Box Jumps, 24/20 in
12 Push Press, 115/75 lbs
9 Toes To Bars

Comment: My 12.1 and the actual 12.3 are fairly close.

Prediction Workout 12.2
15 min AMRAP of:
10 one arm dumbbell snatch
20 kettlebell swings 1.5 pood

Equivalent 12.1
As many reps as possible in 7 mins of:
Burpee

This workout begins from the standing position. The Athlete will move from flat on the ground to touching an object with both hands that is 6 inches above their max reach. Score is total reps completed in 7 minutes.

Comment: Nobody saw that coming, totally different from anything I predicted.

Prediction Workout 12.3
5min AMRAP of:
Snatch 60kg

Equivalent Actual Workout 12.2
Proceed through the sequence below completing as many reps as possible in 10 minutes of:
30 Snatch (M 75 / F 45 lbs)
30 Snatch (M 135 / F 75 lbs)
30 Snatch (M 165 / F 100 lbs)
Max Rep Snatch (M 210 / F 120 lbs)

Comment: Similar on the sticking snatch weight, glad I trained heavy on snatches.

Prediction Workout 12.4
10min AMRAP of:
100 double unders
30 overhead squat 50kg
10 muscle ups

Equivalent Actual Workout 12.4
12.4 record: 148, 240
Complete as many rounds as possible in 12 mins of:
150 Wall Balls, 20/14 lbs, 10/9 ft
90 Double Unders
30 Muscle Ups

Comment: So I was right that there would be a similar hard trek with the best getting to muscle ups to separate themselves from the pack. The actual 12.4 is a much cooler WOD than my prediction.
Prediction Workout 12.5
20min AMRAP of:
10 pull-ups
10 wall balls
10 plyo-push-ups
10 Jumping alternating lunges
10 double unders

Equivalent 12.5 record: 39, 48
Complete as many rounds as possible in 7 mins of:
3 Thrusters, 100 lbs
3 Pull Up (Chest To Bar)s
6....

Comment: Yeah, cool to compare to last year. I was way out with a final chipper style AMRAP. Is that an oxymoron?

Conclusion

I'd say 

prediction 12.1 maps to actual 12.3, 

prediction 12.4 maps to actual 12.4 and 

prediction 12.3 maps to actual 12.2

Not bad for a first try , looking forward to 2013 to try again.

Prebiotics and Probiotics

Here's a bunch of questions I'm asking myself about Prebiotics and Probiotics. Using this page to take notes as I find the answers around the net.

ALL DISEASES BEGIN IN THE GUT 

-Hippocrates,460-370 BC

(Pinched from Robb Wolf's blog post)

Q: What are these and why do people take them regularly? Surely once your gut flora is up to standard you don't need to keep supplementing to keep it that way. I can imagine taking this supplement after a long fast or illness involving diarrhoea or constipation, but why take it all the time?


A:
Prebiotics
Prebiotics are considered a 'functional food', typically carbohydrates (although not in all cases), that stimulate the growth or activity of good bacteria in the digestive system. 


Probiotics
Probiotics, like lactobacillus, are living organisms in the gut, they are the good bacteria that live in the gut and contribute to the process of digestion. These same bacteria are found naturally in certain foods like sauerkraut and yogurt.


Prebiotics stimulate growth of bacteria, probiotics are the bacteria.


Q: If they are both good for digestive system bacteria, then why are probiotics not allowed on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet?
A:


Q: What Prebiotics and Probiotics does Robb Wolf supplement with, does he cycle them and why does he choose those particulare products?
A1: Now Foods Super Enzymes & Florasmart Probiotic (6 billion).
A2: 
A3: 


Q: Japanese conbini's sell "LG21 - Meiji Probiotic Yoghurt". Do these kinds of product make it to the intestine? Or is it all marketing and do any probiotic bacteria get killed by stomach acid before they can make it past the duodenum? 


A: 
Firstly LG21 is not Paleo and that sucks. 
Also LG21 stands for yogurt containing Lactobacillus gasseri OLL2716.
Japanese scientists have done lots of research into LG21 with rats and had lots of favourable results ranging from prevention of gut ulcers to prevention of gut lesions. But who are these scientists working for? Meiji?




Q: When to take probiotics?


If you are increasing your intestinal bacterium or balancing then the dosing times needs to be when your GI tract is empty. Ie first thing in the morning or at bed time. Taking them with a volume of water and when the stomach environment has less acid ensures the probiotics pass through the stomach, the digesitive juices prone 3 feet of small intestine. After all your looking to colonize the rest of the small intestine and large bowel, that remaining 30 ft of intestine, the less acid environment you create for those capsules, the better the chances the flora will eventually take hold. Its accepted that about 10 percent of the amt of probiotics taken at any given time will make it into the intestine. The survivors are lactobacillus and bifidobacteria, the strains are killed off by the acid environment. AGAIN The more neutral environment the better the odds that more strains make it.
This especially true 
1- if you have undergone a strong course of antibiotics for pseudo-membranous colitis or C diff infection.
2- Had a prolonged case of traveller's diarrhoea or actually developed dysentery.
3-Under treatment for H pylori and looking to add a layer of protection to the existing healthy intestinal flora.
Your looking to get as much flora deep as possible as quickly as possible.

If you taking them For Digestion :
Ideally you need to take them an hour before meals. As the soon as the brain thinks of foods, see food, smells food the stomach starts the production of acids, and the stomach begins to churn itself in preparation for the expected incoming meal. The constant acid production over time leads to gastritis and gastric reflux disease. That acid of course over time reduces flora in the stomach itself. Using pro biotics is thought to help balance the colonies. Most researchers are saying that this maybe incorrect as the duration studies were showing that once the dosing stopped, the colonizers stopped.

Digestive enzymes:
If you taking them to return digestive function AFTER a course of proton pump inhibitors or extended usage of H2 blockers like pepcid.
Then you need to take them close to your meal time / more like at the start of your meal or during your meal, this includes snacks. The idea is to have the enzymes work the next hour ( basical what it takes for a meal to be cleared from the stomach and pass onwards.) involved in the multiple stages of food breakdown. Eventually the need for them dwindles as natural enzyemes return to a more optimal level as stomach environment matures again. This can take up to two years for those that had a train wreck of stomach problems.

I think i recall Robb Wolf is a believer that the north american diet is more alkaline based. And overtime the base causes a push to neutral environment in the the gi tract. Thus leading to poor absorption of food nutrients.

2- taking them for candida control or something else other than digestion improvement. Then I think the frequency will be less according to what your taking to achieve.

A lot of the probiotic research comes out of the uk, looking at the use of probiotics to counter the increasing numbers mrsa colonized intestines due to extended / multiple exposure to antibiotics. The us researchers are leading towards its place for crohn's/ colitis/ Irritable bowel management since these groups are subjected to long courses of antibiotics and steroids.

Digestive enzymes seem to have the place in the alternative medicine pathway. Supposedly increased digestion can cure alot of things.

Overall, they are not overall type of supplement, they do a specific thing for specific problem. With that in mind, take them according to what you're trying to achieve.


Q: What foods help like probiotics?
A: Some kind of fermented food is important. Kombucha is a really strong one. Eat small amounts of kimchee as a condiment daily. There's also Biolacto fermented veggies and other options. Kefirs and other recipes in the Body Ecology book that Dr. G keeps raving about.



There are many relatively Paleo-friendly probiotic/cultured foods. These can range from kimchee to sauerkraut to cultured veggies to kombucha.


Key thing on all of them is that they are not pasteurized, or that they are cultured after pasteurization, and that there is not too much salt in them (salt inhibits bacterial growth).



Some store-bought sauerkraut is pasteurized. Which means they heat it really high to get rid of the bacteria (the bacteria you actually want). Raw Sauerkraut is unpasteurized sauerkraut.


Japanese "kimuchi" is not fermented, only korean "kimchi" is prepared using fermentation and contains probiotics.


here's a good probiotics link on paleOZ.com

link to a web page explaining types of bacteria

kefir

Q: What is kefir and where do I get it?

A kefir grain, yesterday

Kefir is like this mysterious grain that somebody created back in the middle ages in Arabia. Nobody knows how the first grain was made, but since then it has been grown, broken, passed around and grown more until now kefir is used to make kefir yoghurt and milk all over the world.



Kefir contains several major strains of friendly bacteria not commonly found in yogurt, Lactobacillus Caucasus, Leuconostoc, Acetobacter species, and Streptococcus species.


It also contains beneficial yeasts, such as Saccharomyces kefir and Torula kefir, which dominate, control and eliminate destructive pathogenic yeasts in the body. They do so by penetrating the mucosal lining where unhealthy yeast and bacteria reside, forming a virtual SWAT team that housecleans and strengthens the intestines. Hence, the body becomes more efficient in resisting such pathogens as E. coli and intestinal parasites.


Kefir’s active yeast and bacteria provide more nutritive value than yogurt by helping digest the foods that you eat and by keeping the colon environment clean and healthy. Because the curd size of kefir is smaller than yogurt, it is also easier to digest, which makes it a particularly excellent, nutritious food for babies, the elderly and people experiencing chronic fatigue and digestive disorders.

You can get "keffir yoghurt" in Nissin World Delicatessen. I haven't checked out National Azabu for their yoghurt offerings yet, but I was surprised to see this today so I bought a couple.

I couldn't wait so I sat in the park on the way home and chugged one of them. It might have been the "20% off" sticker on the tub, but as soon as I got back to the office it was pants down and a case of chutney-bot.

So what does the Japanese say?

"Kefir yoghurt contains live yeast so expels gas. Not to worry though, because this container is capped off with a strong aluminium seal. Take care when opening because little bits might spit out."

Kinds of gut friendly bacteria in kefir is written in this post about probiotics.

Nothing important written there then.