Lauren's World

ローレンです! 🇺🇸➡️Osaka, JPN 🇯🇵 ⛩🏯 6 years Travel🗺| Cool Japan|ジャニーズ JPOP| NEWS💜💖💛💚 🚀🍓 増田担|KAT-TUN|MTG初心者 Twitter->@nihonchique 📧: [email protected] This blog is about my experiences in life with loving and living in Japan, Johnny’s and Associates, Japanese Entertainment, Dramas, Movies, finding my way in life, and anything else in between! Lauren Likes: Kanjani8, NEWS, Tegomassu, Japanese variety shows, Ice cream, J-Dramas, Learning about Johnnys and Associates, Photography, Japan, Japanese culture, Apple Pies, Disney, Dogs, All things sparkly (Thats probably why I LOVE Johnnys XD),Music, Apple (the electronic company) Products, Old school 90′s music, Chai Tea Lattes, Starbucks, Long talks with friends, and Discussing J-Drama theories.

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Working in a Japanese Company #11 - Work-life balance and overtime + COVID

Working in a Japanese Company #11 – Work-life balance and overtime + COVID

Next up in my series of questions about working in Japan is all about my experience with overtime and work-life balance working in a Japanese company. COVID has also influenced some of these answers, but through answering these 3 questions below, this an overview of my experience with work-life balance and overtime working in a Japanese…

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5 Apps I use Daily in Japan

5 Apps I use Daily in Japan

If you are living in Japan long term, these apps have been the most helpful to me while I lived here! Here 5 apps that I use daily living in Japan: LINE LINE is Japan’s messaging app but its way more than that! There is a payment feature in it called LINE Pay as well as coupons, which I use the coupons for Dominos and other places. Most Japanese people seem to use this app for communication…

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How I became a Weeb again at 30

How I became a Weeb again at 30

If you asked me in early 2020 if I would get back into watching and collecting Anime and Manga at 30 years old, I would have thought you were crazy. I DO live in the center of it all in Japan and have been for almost 9 years now, but despite me living here for that long I never collected anime and manga even though it was such a huge part of my teenage years. This changed when the pandemic hit…

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9 observations + Tips from attending my first Japanese wedding

9 observations + Tips from attending my first Japanese wedding

Towards the beginning of November I travelled to Tokyo for my first Japanese wedding… EVER. In the 8 years I’ve lived in Japan I was never invited to a wedding but this time a Japanese university friend who I’m close with was getting married and she invited me, even with capacity reduced to 50% because of the current global situation. I felt honored and I wanted to make sure that I did as…

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Working in a Japanese Company #9 - Am I treated Differently as a Foreigner?

Working in a Japanese Company #9 – Am I treated Differently as a Foreigner?

I asked on Instagram what questions people had about working in a Japanese company in a non-english teaching job since there seemed to be a huge interest and I received so many good ones! I received so many in fact, I have to break them up into a series of posts and this first post is all about questions on if I am treated differently being a foreigner and if the expectations are different.

F…

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3 Things I Learned From Being Stuck Out Of Japan For 5 Months During a Pandemic

3 Things I Learned From Being Stuck Out Of Japan For 5 Months During a Pandemic

On March 12th I left Japan on a 3 week trip with my roommate to South Africa. It was a once in a lifetime trip for me… we had talked about me joining her to visit her mother for 5 years and it was finally happening! Of course with the looming pandemic we did our research and kept an eye on the news the weeks leading up to our departure. Days before, we made an educated decision that we would be…

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Working in a Japanese Company: Part 9 - 5 Differences Between Working in the USA and Japan

Working in a Japanese Company: Part 9 – 5 Differences Between Working in the USA and Japan

For this next part of my working in a Japanese company series, I wanted to talk about differences between working in the US and Japan. Having experience working in both Japan and the US, it’s fascinating to see what is normal and not normal in both business cultures.

Transportation to Work is Paid For By the Company

In the US companies don’t pay for transportation to work as a benefit…

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Working in a Japanese Company: Part 8 - 5 More Mistakes to Avoid Working in a Japanese Company

Working in a Japanese Company: Part 8 – 5 More Mistakes to Avoid Working in a Japanese Company

Back by popular demand from the previous post, here are 5 more mistakes to avoid working in a Japanese company. These are a bit more

Eye Contact

Eye contact is actually considered aggressive in Japan, and not just in a business setting. You will notice that people, especially people of “lower rank” then you won’t make direct eye contact very often. Coming from the west this can be seen as…

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5 Things About Dining in Japan You Should Know Before Arriving

5 Things About Dining in Japan You Should Know Before Arriving

Dining in a Japan doesn’t have to be complicated! Use these below tips to help you navigate the food scene in Japan. Here are 5 things about Dining in Japan you should know before coming.

NO TIPPING

This is a classic, but it must be said just in case…. There is NO TIPPING in Japan. This is for restaurants as well as services like hair, nails, concierge at a hotel, tour guide, etc. There is…

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Why I Say No to Fukubukuro, Japanese "Lucky Bags"

Why I Say No to Fukubukuro, Japanese "Lucky Bags"

The end of December brings the announcement of lots of retail shop’s Fukubukuro 「福袋」, often called Lucky Bags or Happy Bags. If you are not familiar with the concept, these are bags of goodies that have a set price to them and most of the time you don’t know what you are going to get inside but the price is a LOT cheaper than you would normally pay for items at that store which is an incentive…

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Jpop Group "NEWS" Soccer Songs Ranked |nihonchique

Jpop Group "NEWS" Soccer Songs Ranked |nihonchique

Since their comeback in 2012 as 4 members, NEWS has been known for their soccer songs with 7 releases and with the 8th for this year’s 2019 FIFA Club World Cup, SUPERSTAR, pending release date. Every year since 2012 member Tegoshi Yuya is the main caster for the FIFA Club World Cup and NEWS is chosen to do the theme song since, totaling 6 songs with 2 songs for the FIFA World Cup in 2014 (ONE…

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5 Ways To Survive Winter In Japan From A Native Floridian

5 Ways To Survive Winter In Japan From A Native Floridian

Winter in Japan varies where you are visiting, but most of the country gets consistently to 0 degrees Celsius of colder during the winter, so it gets pretty cold… at least to me. I went from not knowing anything about how to survive winter being a native Floridian to being thrown into the Kyoto cold when I first moved to Japan, so here are 5 tips from a native Floridian on how to survive winter…

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5 Realities of Living in Japan as a Foreigner

5 Realities of Living in Japan as a Foreigner

Living in Japan as a foreigner is such a fulfilling experience. I have been living here for over 7 years now and can’t imagine living anywhere else, but with the good comes the bad and there are some realities of living in Japan as a foreigner that some people might not be aware of before they move here. There are so many realities of living abroad, but the ones I wanted to talk about this time…

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Working in a Japanese Company: Part 7 – 5 Mistakes to Avoid Working in a Japanese Company

Working in a Japanese Company: Part 7 – 5 Mistakes to Avoid Working in a Japanese Company

Adapting to a completely different work culture in another country can be a huge learning curve. I live in Japan and have been working here for almost 5 years at a regular office job as an “OL”, or an “office lady” the term for a woman working in an office here in Japan. Throughout my experience working here I have a few things I have learned to avoid doing while working in a Japanese office, so…

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NEWS - "Topgun/ Love Story" Single Review

NEWS – “Topgun/ Love Story” Single Review

Top Gun/ Love Story is Double A-side single released on June 12th, 2019 with a pure love ballad paired together with a passionate, upbeat song about longing after an elite, hard to get woman. On release day, it just scrapped by their 4 member comeback single Chankapana in number of copies sold, making it their best selling single as 4 members. Love Story/ Top Gun sold 121,842 copies and…

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The days are getting shorter and Fall is finally upon us! BUT I’ve heard that the real #sweaterweather won’t hit until closer to November in Japan which means fall in December?? 😱🍁 ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ #hello_worldpics⁣ #travelanddestinations⁣ #japan #travel #traveljapan #japantravel #osaka #japan_osaka_city ⁣ #ExploreJPN #visitjapanjp⁣ #japanlife #expatlife #expat #girlswhotravel #girlswhowander #girlsabroad #wanderlust #asia #travelasia #asiantravel (at Nishinomiya, Hyogo) https://www.instagram.com/p/B25YHnZHjwe/?igshid=1mllatty25gs1

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Look up! 👆🏻You might be surprised by what you find 😲 #taiwan #hello_worldpics #travelanddestinations #travel #traveltaiwan #taiwantravel #girlswhotravel #girlswhowander #girlsabroad #wanderlust #asia #travelasia #asiatravel #expat #expatlife #lifeabroad #台湾 #台北 #temple (at Longshan Temple (Taipei)) https://www.instagram.com/p/B23IBR_neNE/?igshid=1alp98y5bxivp