Leaving Okinawa

1. Prepare to Move Out

See this page for the details of the check-out procedure for your apartment a week before departure. If you have a rental car you should prepare to return it.
Please also contact us if you need a taxi to the airport and it has not been arranged yet.

2. Sell/Donate/Dispose of Personal Belongings

OIST Marketplace (TIDA)
Donate to TSVP: If you think an item might be helpful for the next visitor(s) you can ask us if you can leave it in the apartment (e.g. clothes drying racks and de-humidifiers are in demand)
Sell or donate
Disposal: Please dispose over-sized trash properly as described

3. Submit Move-out Notification to City Hall (and Post Office)

If you stayed in Japan for over three months, please submit the move-out notification to your municipal office. You should also withdraw from the Japanese National Health Insurance at this point.
If you need help please contact the TSVP assistant.

We also suggest that you submit a moving notice to the post office. Ideally you will have wrapped up all payments before leaving (e.g. mobile phone contract, health insurance, ...), but sometime important letters come after you leave.

4. Pay Bills, Close Unnecessary Bank Account(s)

Make sure to pay outstanding bills, e.g. CDC childcare, phone bill, health insurance, etc.

If you created a Japanese Bank Account and no longer need it, please visit the bank to cancel your account or do it online/via mail if that is possible.

5. Apartment check-out visit

For long-term visitors we schedule a quick visit to your apartment before you leave, to give you an opportunity to show us any issues that might be there so that we can improve them in the future (please also show us at this point if there is any damage you may have caused to the furniture, walls, etc.).

6. Check-out: Return OIST ID Card and key(s) on your last day at OIST

Return to the TSVP Team or leave on the table in your apartment:

OIST ID Card
OIST Family card and shuttle bus pass (if you have them)
Office key (if you have one)

If it is possible return directly to TSVP Team, if not put in red post box at "The Gardens" office:

Apartment key(s)

Please also take out the trash and wash the towels and bathmat before you leave, see details on the Apartment Check-Out process here: https://groups.oist.jp/tsvp/tsvp-housing#checkout

Please keep the air conditioning on in all rooms (in Spring/Summer: Cool Mode 26C // in colder months: Dehumidification Mode at 26C).

6. TSVP Exit Report

IMPORTANT: Please describe your stay and give us feedback about the program via this short form: https://forms.office.com/r/TGDCC35hPK
You can also leave recommendations for other visitors.

7. Return your Residence Card(s)

When you are leaving Japan permanently, you need to return your Residence Card to Immigration inspector at your airport of departure from Japan (Tokyo).

8. Stay in Touch

Please feel free to contact us at any time. If you want please follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn. We will also message you a few months after your stay to ask if any publications or ongoing collaborations have resulted from your stay at OIST.

9. TSVP Acknowledgement in Publications

IMPORTANT: Please inform the TSVP Team of any publications that result from research (partially) conducted during your term of appointment at OIST.
Please list the TSVP/OIST as one of your affiliations when publishing and include a short phrase in the acknowledgements, as written below.

Affiliation:
Theoretical Sciences Visiting Program (TSVP), Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna, 904-0495, Japan

Acknowledgement:
This research was conducted while visiting the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) through the Theoretical Sciences Visiting Program (TSVP).

Acknowledgement in case of salary from OIST:
This research was conducted while funded by the Theoretical Sciences Visiting Program (TSVP) at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST).