Haha alright, nothing wrong with drinking.

If anyone has the info on apartment living, it'll be much appreicated!

@razorblade...., the price of the apartments vary from the distance related to the train station..., apartment living by yourself will be a little more than the hotel, but it is a LOT more comfortable..., to give you an example I live about 8 minutes walk from the station and I pay ¥70,000 per month and about 12,000 more between utilities and internet...., if you share with another pilot it would be a lot cheaper of course, there are a lot of options for apartments actually.

That really helps. Thanks a lot!

There is a story going around in training that someone went skiing on one of their "blank" days (in between flights at NRT), broke his leg skiing and was fired for being outside the area. Is this true and what is the rule on this?

Unless it happened again and I don't know about it (could very well be...., I have to say that I'm not that interested in the "latest")this is an old story..., this happened before the economical collapse and way before the merger...! And no! He did not get fired because of this, the rule is simple, if you come in on a shore pass you need to stay in the Tokyo metropolitan area or the area of both cities specified on the transfer of the shore pass (when you arrive in Haneda and your next flight is from Okinawa for example) if you are going to use your BD for personal travel (not a problem unless you are on reserve) you need to come in on a visa..., that way you can travel unrestricted all over Japan. People use their BD's to travel within Japan all the time, just don't do it on your shore pass.

Also, my understanding is this person had previous issues with the company and this was the final issue that led to his termination. You have to work really hard to be terminated by the company. We have had some guys in the past that I was amazed they were still employed by the company with all the crap they have pulled.

As Dom said, if you have any plans do go outside the Tokyo area then just come in on your passport and there will not be any issues.

Not exactly.., if it is the same person that we are talking about, he got fired a couple of years after this particular event.

Thanks guys for clarifying. I'm in training now and you know how stuff gets passed around. I was surprised that during orientation we weren't given a company policy book with the rules to follow (in the US it would also contain things like sexual harassment, etc.). Maybe this comes later during line training?

What about medical issues? I don't have any, but it has to be a concern for everyone as they age. Is the company and medical (special issuance, etc.) similar or tougher than what you'd find elsewhere (I'm referring to countries like the US and not places like China)?

I'll give you the best advise about this job that you will ever get...!
Don't worry about any of that nonsense and make sure you disconnect from training mode often to have a cold one!

I do not know exactly when he was fired but the point is that was not the only thing he did to get his employment terminated with AJX.