Overseas Business Trips

We did all our immigration stuff separately, and just did some basic coaching on the questions likely to be asked etc. Was a doddle really. Just make sure they all have their ESTA stuff done in advance.

Not sure about the canada stuff though.

I mean it certainly won't hurt, but.... I don't get the impression that immigration officers care that much. I think it'll be pretty obvious that your people aren't trying to be illegal immigrants or overstay their visas or anything. But if it would make them feel better, by all means request one.

I can send you (when I get back) a list of questions and answers that I had my sister city group practice for immigration. I even acted as an annoyed guard as well as a hulemdoly one - thankfully the one in Chicago was incredibly nice and even spoke some Japanese for our group. Just remind them that it is only about one or two questions.


However, I would definitely recommend having a letter of invitation from the sister city. It's easier explaining students having a homestay experience as their purpose, but adults saying they are visiting a sister city - they will most likely ask for a letter of invitation because this happened to one of the groups in previous years and it was a doozy!

i.. had almost the same situation. i more or less knew the schedule and that all of my free time was for sleeping or for small chunks of time between things. our sister city is... a day's drive away so i told my family to not bother which was a very good thing. we still talked on the phone during 1 or 2 of my down times but that was it.

if it is not that crazy of a trip for her, she would have other things to do there besides see you, and it looks like you might have an evening or otherwise a proper amount of time to devote to spending with her then i would ask.

Ok I will keep this in mind. We are still waiting on the schedule from our sister city but chances are there won't be time.

@justjess It really doesn't hurt to ask! Especially if you couch it in something like "Ah, there may not be any time, but...." and if they respond with a no, just reassure them that you completely understand and it's totally fine.

On my last overseas trip, I had a couple evenings where dinner was "on our own," and whereas on previous trips we would ALWAYS eat together (and I would translate the menu and order) and hence I had zero free time, this was everyone's second or third trip so they felt more comfortable with me leaving them to their own devices and having dinner on my own a night or two. (And "dinner on my own" meant I met up with a hulemdo to have dinner.) So it may come down to what your coworkers are comfortable with and how much they need you.

I know that my coworkers are very sensitive about how they are perceived when working abroad by the people left behind in the office and by people in Japan in general -- having "free time" on a "business trip" is generally frowned upon here, so they often make up the schedule to look like we are insanely busy at every moment of the day. Sometimes we actually are, and sometimes it's just something to fill the schedule and it's actually flexible/you might be able to get out of it. (My first overseas trip definitely had a morning where I was not strictly needed so my coworkers let me sleep in at the hotel and join them later because I was feeling pretty poorly/I'd been assisting and interpreting till like 23:00 the previous day.)

tl;dr sometimes the schedule is not as inflexible as it seems and your coworkers will be willing to at least hear you out, so definitely ask!

My office arranges travel insurance for me and doesn't require me to pay extra; I think it's part of the package they get from the travel agency they go through because all my coworkers get the same "here's your travel insurance" packet with our e-tickets. (Which travel agency it is depends on the trip because it's whatever company offers us the lowest bid, but I think travel insurance is always included in our requests.)

I know the JET Accident Insurance does cover the time you spend overseas. "Liabilities from injuries caused during official work duties" aren't covered as you correctly said, but I think you could argue that if you fall ill that's not an "injury" and therefore it would still count (not to mention that if you were injured outside of your usual work hours I think you could make an argument that it wasn't "at work"). If you do use JET Accident Insurance, it might take a while for your claim to be processed and you'll still have to pay up front, but I know former user mattbox's gf used it successfully after having a major medical issue while the two of them were on a trip in SE Asia. (See page 7 and onward.)

I don't think this was very helpful but good luck!! >.<;;

Edit: C.LAIR's website says, "2. This insurance policy does not provide coverage for medical expenses incurred by injuries or sicknesses sustained during official work duties, already covered by the Local Public Service Accident Compensation." This adds the "sickness" part from the official insurance guide, so I'm a bit confused.... But I guess the next question is, does the Local Public Service Accident Compensation cover anything that happens overseas?

What's the daikyu situation like for you guys when you go on SYUTTYOU abroad?

I'm leaving the 26th (a Wednesday) and getting back the 31st (a Monday), so I'm getting daikyu for the afternoon of Friday, and the two weekend days (29&30) in between. The other days just count as normal work days for me, even though I have a feeling I will definitely be doing more than 8 hours of work.

I'm not planning on SMACKDOWNing it or anything (especially since the half of the 30th I will actually be on the plane and I know some of you have said you don't get daikyu for travelling) but I'm just kind of curious.

yeah, you should get the saturday and sunday daikyuu, but probably won't get any of the extra hours. not sure if it's even worth SMACKDOWNing it tbh.

i kinda treated it as a fair trade for taking me though so you could ask about it i guess

yeah this is pretty much how I feel about it. also trying to keep track of hours while I'm there seems like a hassle.

yeah I'm not sure what's happening with this either?

I was initially told the mayor couldn't host us because they had exchange students staying there, and the mayor here was like "I don't wanna do a homestay anyways" so we were looking at hotels, but last week (?) the mayor from that city sent an email to my hosa (who happens to have the same last name as the mayor here) like "hey I have a big house and I want to invite you and your interpreter to stay with us"


so I don't know what's happening -_-


apparently the mayor is going to come pick us up from the airport though?

I'm worried that's what my mayor and kakaricho are going to be like when we get there...


we were talking about how the IEA kaicho has to leave super early and my kakaricho was like "I wish I could leave early too" and I was just like 

He's really worried about English and my soup keeps being like "but Anna will be there" and I wish people would stop being scared of the GAIKOK because of YEIGO. Americans go places all the time without giving a shit about knowing the language, also you can still have fun without enjoying the language...

anyone received anything about this?

www.ezairyu.mofa.go.jp/tabireg/

hue

tl;dr - tell us when you go abroad so we can send you tips on how not to get pickpocketed or murdered, and remind you of the dangers of TERO in the KIKEN GAIKOKU

fake edit:

in the FAQs:

I saw a memo on this, apparently aimed at all public employees traveling abroad. I don't think it's relevant to us as I doubt the gaimusho would really care or do anything about non-Japanese nationals in case anything happened. I'll stick with the US Dept. of State.