[jasonbvr]

For the renewal process you will still need proof of employment and to pay the four thousand yen or whatever the cost is. But you have to realize for any reason or none at all, they could choose not to renew and often they choose not to give the longer term visas especially because your contract is no longer than one year. Who knows what the people in the offices really base their decisions on? I got my visa on the first visa but know of people having to return a second time three months later for theirs.

As far as just flying in to Japan and thinking you will be able to get a teaching job on the first day, I would say that is a one out of a million type situation. I've said it before, I had a list of around 30 employers I sent my resume to. Ten called and interviewed me, and out of those ten I had five that were seriously considering hiring me. The whole process took a month.

Now that I am in Japan and have experience, I would probably get responses from maybe like 2 out of 3 employers and be offered the job from both. Even then though, the process from interviewing to hiring would probably be at least a month. After that, I would not be payed until a month after starting.

So if you flew over here, you would be living for 2 to 3 months without a job and the bare minimum amount of money you will need to survive for a month in Japan (unless you sleep in Yoyogi park with the homeless) would be around 80-90,000 yen.