Anyone living in or visiting Japan is no stranger to walking around with a bucketful of coins in their pants/purse.  The excitement before your first Tokyo subway ride soon quells as you're greeted by a flurry of coins spraying from the ticket machine like a Las Vegas slot hitting the jackpot.  Tourism stamina wanes as you really start feeling that 10-pound metal load clinking in your pocket.

I don't know why Japan loves coins, but the reason rests in the fact their paper money starts at 1000 yen, roughly a $10 bill back in better economic times.  During my years living here, I've developed a few techniques for coping with coin overload.

Read more: Living in Japan - How to Get Rid of Coins

It's tough to beat a credit card's convenience, so I felt naked and demoted after moving to Japan and encountering a sea of rejection when trying to apply for a local credit card.   True...I could use my US credit card, but that weak dollar / strong yen exchange rate right now would obliterate my US savings account.  In addition, overseas card transactions are often denied by the vendor or credit card company or both; and sending money home to pay the bill effectively strips the credit card of its intrinsic convenience.

Damn, I wanted a local card.  But at the same time I understood their reluctance to grant me one.  I'm a gaijin, and everybody knows that we're the ones that commit all the crimes here.  I could easily go on a crazy "Brewster's Millions" shopping spree and skip town.  While jobless irresponsible American me managed to get a decent credit card as a college student, responsibly-employed living-in-Japan me failed time and time again.

Read more: How to Get a Credit Card in Japan

Finding a good apartment or any apartment in Japan can be a real pain for foreigners.  Most apartments require a guarantor on the lease, basically someone to vouch for you.  Unfortunately, that often proves somewhat of a difficulty for us foreigners because no one wants to vouch for us hooligans :-(.  If you're lucky, your company will sign as your guarantor.  If you're unlucky (like me), they will not.  Below I present a few foreigner-friendly, no-guarantor-required housing options that have proved quite handy to yours truly.

Read more: How to Find a Good Apartment in Japan

I recently started my own IT consulting business here in Japan, and needless to say it was quite a learning experience.  Hoping to relieve others from some of the tedium, I compiled an outline of the process along with some tips for starting your very own Japanese company.

Read more: How to Start a Company in Japan