Written for your first trip to Japan. Read the first two sections before you fly; the rest will be waiting when you get there.
Hello. I am Kai, and I will be with you for the whole trip — in the app, whenever you need something.
This guide is everything I can help with, written down. You do not need to read it all. Sections one and two before you fly; the rest will be here when Japan raises a question.
See you in Tokyo.
KOS installs from your browser. There is no app store download and nothing to pay.
Open kos.kaizenflix.com in Chrome. A bar appears offering to install it — tap Install. If you miss it, use the menu (⋮) and choose Install app.
Open the same address in Safari. Tap the Share button (the square with an arrow), scroll down, and choose Add to Home Screen. Apple does not allow apps to prompt for this, so you have to do it yourself — but it only takes a moment.
Do this before you leave India. Installing needs a connection, and the app pre-loads what it needs to work offline. Doing it at Narita on airport wifi is possible but unnecessary stress.
Create an account with your email. You will get a membership number, which is how we recognise you if you contact us. Your name and email are all we ask for.
Four things are worth doing in the fortnight before departure. The app will remind you about each.
Indian passport holders need a visa to visit Japan. Nothing else in this guide matters until that is in hand, so start here and start early.
Tools → Visa Assistance holds the document checklist and what to expect. Apply through the Embassy or Consulate of Japan, or the eVisa route where you are eligible — and allow several weeks rather than several days.
Visit Japan Web is not a visa. They are entirely separate. Visit Japan Web handles your arrival card and customs declaration once you already have permission to travel. Completing it does not grant you entry, and having a visa does not remove the need for it.
Requirements and processing times change, so treat any list — including ours — as a starting point and confirm against the embassy's current guidance. If something in your case is unusual, ask us.
Go to Account → Your next trip and enter your dates. This turns on the countdown and the checklist, and it is what makes the rest of the app know where you are in your journey.
Once your dates are in, a checklist appears on the Home screen. Items arrive as they become relevant rather than all at once, so a fortnight out you will see Visit Japan Web and teamLab, and two days out you will see currency and offline maps. Tick them off as you go — the ticks are kept on your phone.
This is Japan's official pre-arrival form. It replaces the paper arrival card and customs declaration you would otherwise fill in on the plane, and gives you a QR code that opens the fast lanes at the airport.
Find it under Tools → Before Travel. Have your passport, flight number, and the address of your first night's accommodation ready. It takes about fifteen minutes.
It is optional, not mandatory. Paper forms are still handed out and accepted everywhere. But at Haneda, Narita and Kansai the QR code saves a long wait after a nine-hour flight. Finish it at least six hours before you land, and screenshot the code before you board — airport wifi is not guaranteed.
Also under Before Travel. Add the train journeys you are planning and it compares the total against the price of a JR Pass. For many itineraries the pass does not pay for itself, and it is better to know that before you buy.
The first hour is when you most need the app and are least likely to have data.
Get some cash. Japan is far more cash-reliant than most visitors expect, particularly at shrines, small restaurants and older shops. Airport ATMs at 7-Eleven and Japan Post accept most Indian cards.
Japan is more cash-reliant than almost anywhere else at this income level. Plan for it.
Tools → Suica / PASMO explains the IC cards. You tap them on every train, bus and subway gate, and you can also pay with them in convenience stores, vending machines and many restaurants. Getting one on your first day removes a great deal of friction.
The ₹ ⇆ ¥ converter under Before Travel does the arithmetic instantly. Useful in a shop when a price is quoted in yen and you have no instinct yet for whether it is expensive.
Tools → Finders → Cash & ATMs covers which machines accept foreign cards. The short version: 7-Eleven and Japan Post are reliable; many bank ATMs are not, and will simply refuse an Indian card without explanation.
Changing Money in the same section covers where to exchange and where not to.
At the register, put cash in the tray. There is a small dish on the counter for this. Handing notes directly to the cashier is not rude exactly, but the tray is the custom and using it marks you as someone who has paid attention.
If you are vegetarian, this is the section that matters most. Read it before your first meal.
Japanese cooking uses dashi — a stock made from dried bonito, which is fish. It is in miso soup, tempura dipping sauce, most simmered dishes, many egg dishes, and a great deal else that reads as vegetarian on a menu. The menu will not mention it, because to a Japanese cook it is not an ingredient worth listing, in the way you would not list water.
Under Tools → Scanner, photograph a menu. You can take a photo there and then, or choose one you took earlier — useful when the restaurant is busy and you would rather read it outside.
For each dish you get a verdict. Note carefully what it says:
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Contains meat or fish | Clearly not vegetarian. |
| No meat listed — confirm the stock | Nothing obviously non-vegetarian on the menu, but the stock may still be fish-based. Ask. |
| Unclear — ask the staff | The menu does not give enough to judge. |
We will never tell you a dish is vegetarian. We cannot see what the menu does not say, and an AI reading a photograph cannot either. The honest answer is almost always "probably, but ask" — and we would rather be honest than reassuring.
Below each scan result you will find the questions to ask, in Japanese, with a play button so the phone can say them aloud. They adapt to what you have told us in your preferences:
Set your dietary preference in Account so the app knows which to offer.
The same scanner reads product labels. Photograph a package and you will get what it is, an approximate price, whether it is typically tax-free eligible, and how it compares to buying at home. Japanese sweets and instant food routinely contain gelatin, bonito powder or lard without an English label, so it is worth checking before you buy in quantity.
Thirteen short guides for the problems that come up once you are actually there. Tools → Finders.
| Finder | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Konbini Veg Guide | What a vegetarian can actually eat in a 7-Eleven or Lawson at 11pm. Probably the single most used page in the app. |
| Indian Restaurants | Where to find one when you have had enough. There are more than you would expect. |
| Veg & Vegan | Restaurants that will genuinely cope, rather than ones that say they will. |
| Cash & ATMs | Which machines take foreign cards. |
| Changing Money | Where to exchange, and where the rates are poor. |
| Medical Help | Finding a clinic or hospital, and what to expect. |
| Pharmacy | Buying what you need without the language. |
| Coin Lockers | How the lockers work, sizes, and what to do when they are all full. |
| Luggage Forwarding | Sending your bags ahead so you are not dragging a suitcase up station stairs. Genuinely transformative and barely known outside Japan. |
| WiFi Guide | Where free wifi actually exists and how to connect. |
| Optical Shops | Replacing glasses or lenses. Fast and cheap in Japan. |
| Souvenirs | What is worth carrying home, and what is not. |
| Sneakers | Onitsuka and the rest — what to look for and where. |
Luggage forwarding deserves a mention on its own. For a few hundred yen you can send a suitcase from one hotel to the next and travel with a day bag. Japanese travellers do this constantly; visitors almost never think of it, and then spend a week wrestling luggage through Shinjuku.
Two tools, for two different situations.
Tools → Translator. Type what you want to say in English, Hindi or Kannada and you get it in Japanese, with the pronunciation written out, the meaning read back so you can confirm it is right, and a note on politeness. Press play and the phone says it.
It also works the other way. If someone speaks to you and you have no idea what was said, switch the direction and it will translate into your language.
Somebody writes an address on a slip of paper. A ryokan owner leaves a note. A station worker scribbles a platform number. Japanese handwriting defeats most visitors and every phone keyboard.
Open Travel Notes and tap Read this. Photograph the writing and you get the original text, its pronunciation, what it means, and a line of practical advice — often that an address should be shown to a taxi driver rather than read aloud.
Japan's rail network is superb and initially bewildering.
Ask Kai about any journey and you will get the specific line to take, roughly how long it will cost and how much, whether your JR Pass covers it, and which station exit to aim for. That last detail matters more than it sounds — large stations have dozens of exits and choosing wrongly can mean a twenty-minute walk.
Tools → Metro Maps holds offline maps for each city. Download the ones you need before you go.
Always confirm times and platforms in Google Maps or Japan Transit Planner. We give you guidance, not live schedules. Japanese trains keep to the timetable so precisely that a two-minute error matters.
改 — the Kai in Kaizen. Ask anything about your trip.
Kai covers the whole journey, not just sightseeing: trains and routes, food and where to eat, etiquette, neighbourhoods, budgets, packing, connectivity, money, shopping and tax-free, and getting through the airport at both ends.
Ask in English, Hindi or Kannada and Kai will reply in the same language.
On Indian customs, expect caution rather than certainty. Allowances depend on your passenger category and length of stay, and they change. Kai will tell you what to expect and point you to current CBIC guidance rather than quote a figure that may be out of date. High-value items like watches and electronics attract more scrutiny and are usually expected to be declared.
Worth two minutes of setup before you go. Once done you can say “Hey Siri, Kai” or “Hey Google, Kai” and the app opens straight into the chat — from the lock screen, while walking, or with luggage in both hands.
Full instructions for both phones are in Tools → Finders, at the top of the page. On iPhone it is a Shortcut; on Android a Google Assistant routine.
After a scan you can tap Ask Kai about this and the conversation starts with your scan already in hand — useful for "which of these can I actually eat?"
All of it from the Japan Meteorological Agency, translated into what it means for your day.
Tools → Weather. Pick a city for a five-day forecast. Twenty-seven destinations are listed, grouped by region.
Above the forecast you will see any weather warning in force for that prefecture — heavy rain, storms, snow, flooding, landslides. Each comes with what it actually means: whether trains are likely to suspend, whether to avoid riverside paths, whether to allow much more time.
We only show 警報 (warning) level and above. Somewhere in Japan is under a minor advisory almost every day, and alerting you to drizzle would only teach you to ignore us on the day it matters.
Japan has small earthquakes constantly. Most are unremarkable. What matters is not the magnitude but the shindo — the intensity where you are standing.
| Shindo | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1–3 | Felt indoors. Trains run normally. |
| 4 | Clearly felt. Trains may pause briefly for inspection. |
| 5− / 5+ | Trains suspend for track checks and lifts stop. Expect delays of an hour or more. |
| 6− and above | Serious. Follow instructions from station and hotel staff, and contact us. |
Recent activity anywhere in Japan appears in the Weather section. If something significant happens — shindo 5− or above — a banner appears wherever you are in the app.
We are not an early warning system, and you should not treat us as one. Japan broadcasts earthquake early warnings directly to every phone over the cellular network, seconds before shaking starts. That is faster and more reliable than any app. Leave those alerts switched on. What we do is tell you what happened afterwards and what it means for your day.
Fuji is hidden by cloud far more often than visitors expect. The Home screen scores the next five mornings from Kawaguchiko, where most people go to see it, and scores only the 6–9am window — the mountain generates its own cloud as the day warms, so an afternoon that looks fine from Tokyo is often hopeless at the lakes.
A notepad that works with no signal, because that is when you need it.
Find it on the Home screen or in your Japan Wallet. Four ways to add something:
| Type | Good for |
|---|---|
| Typing | Hotel wifi passwords, room numbers, a restaurant you want to remember. |
| Photo | The hotel entrance, the right station exit, a shop sign you will want to find again. |
| Sketch | Drawing a map for a taxi driver, or marking where your group is meeting. |
| Read this | Photographing handwriting or a sign and keeping what it says. |
Your notes never leave your phone. They are not uploaded, and we hold no copy. That means they work with no signal, and it also means we never see what you write.
The trade is that clearing your browser data or reinstalling will delete them. Copy all puts everything on your clipboard so you can paste it into an email to yourself — worth doing at the end of a trip.
The things you need to show somebody, available without a connection.
The Visit Japan Web QR is kept on your phone only, for the same reason as your notes: it contains your passport details, and we have chosen not to hold those. Delete it once you have landed — there is a button on the viewer.
Under Explore. These are things we arrange, rather than information we provide.
Drive the cars Japan is famous for, on Japanese roads. Skylines, Supras, and the rest.
Distillery visits — Yamazaki, Hakushu, Chichibu and others. Some require booking months ahead, which is exactly the sort of thing worth asking us about early.
The real places behind the scenes you know. Stations, staircases, level crossings, coastlines.
Group trips from India with fixed dates — for families, friends and corporate groups. Same planning, somebody else's calendar. Worth a look if you would rather not build an itinerary from scratch.
Real-world quests, verified by photo or check-in. Climb something, eat something, find something. Mostly for the pleasure of it, and a decent way to make a teenager engage with a temple.
Which will happen — on the plane, before your eSIM activates, and in the deeper subway stations.
| Works offline | Needs a connection |
|---|---|
| The app itself opening | Kai's replies |
| Travel notes, sketches and photos | The menu and product scanner |
| Your Visit Japan Web QR | Translations |
| Downloaded metro maps | Weather and earthquake information |
| Emergency numbers and phrases | Signing in for the first time |
| The etiquette guide |
Open the app once on wifi before you fly. That is what loads the offline copy. If you install at the airport and never open it until you land, there is nothing stored yet.
Under Tools → Emergency, and it works with no signal.
| Number | For |
|---|---|
| 119 | Ambulance and fire |
| 110 | Police |
Both are free from any phone, including one with no SIM. The Emergency section also holds the phrases you would need in Japanese, so you can be understood by an operator who may not speak English.
We have an office presence in Tokyo, in Japan hours. If you are stuck, lost, or something has gone wrong that you cannot resolve, contact us. We can speak Japanese to a hotel, a station, or a taxi company on your behalf — which is very often the whole problem.
What we cannot do. We are not an emergency service. In a serious situation call 119 or 110 first, then us. In a large earthquake or typhoon our own staff in Japan are affected too, and the networks will be congested. What we can reliably do is speak the language, know what happens next, and start working on getting you moving again.
If your passport is lost or stolen, contact the Embassy of India in Tokyo. The details are in the Emergency section.
If your company gave you a card, this is what it unlocks.
Go to Tools → Elite and enter the code your travel desk gave you, in the form KZN-ELITE-XXXX-XXXX. You will need to be signed in first.
Once activated you get:
We never report individual usage to your company. Your travel desk sees how many seats are in use — not who used them, and not where anyone went.
We hold the activation records ourselves, under our published privacy policy, so that we can revoke a lost card and help a traveller who is locked out.
Our membership tiers, under Account. Elite, Black and Infinite, each with a higher AI allowance and more of our attention. Elite on Business sits within it — if your company gave you a card, you are on Elite.
Worth reading once, because several features are shaped by it.
Photographs you take for the scanner are sent to our AI provider to be read, and are not used to identify you. The full detail is in our Privacy Policy, linked at the bottom of the app.
The row of buttons at the top changes how the app looks — 桜 Sakura, 紅葉 Momiji, 雪 Yuki, 祭 Matsuri. Leave it on Auto and it follows the season, and shifts with the weather where you are looking: rain, snow, heat and cold each have their own palette. Choose one manually and it stays.
Real-world quests, verified by photo or check-in. Climb something, eat something, find something. Mostly for the pleasure of it.
Separate from the scanner. Tools → Shopping Assistant covers what is genuinely worth buying in Japan and what only looks like it is — useful before you spend an afternoon in a department store.
On the Home screen. Tell it where you are going and it works out which line, roughly how long, and what it will cost.
Bowing, shoes, chopsticks, onsen, gift-giving, trains. Short, practical, and written on the assumption that the attempt matters more than getting it perfect. Works offline.
Scroll to the bottom of the app and tap Check for updates. That forces a fresh download. Useful if you have had the app open for days and something looks wrong.
After your trip you will be asked five short questions. Please be blunt in the free-text boxes — that is the part we read most carefully, and it is how most of what is in this guide came to exist.
That is everything. If something is missing from this guide, tell me in the app — most of what is here started as somebody's question.
いい旅を · Have a good trip.