Essential Japanese phrases

Your residence card, handed to you at the airport for medium and long-term stays. Carry it — the law requires it and police do ask.

The move-in notification you file at one of Sapporo's ten ward offices within fourteen days. Nothing else — insurance, banking, a phone — happens before it.

Your individual tax and social security number, issued once you are registered. The physical card now doubles as your health insurance card.

Key money — a non-refundable gift to the landlord. Sapporo has more zero-reikin stock than almost any Japanese city, but ask rather than assume.

Residence tax, worked out on last year's income and billed from the following June. Year one feels cheap; year two is the real number.

Kerosene. Most Sapporo flats are heated with it, delivered by tanker to a tank outside, and it is the single biggest seasonal line in a Hokkaido budget.

Draining the water pipes before leaving the flat empty in winter. Every Hokkaido home has the valve. Skip it and the pipes burst at your expense.

Clearing snow to the side of the road versus hauling it away by truck. Two different operations, two different budgets, and the second one is the one your neighbourhood argues about.

'The mainland' — what Hokkaido people call the rest of Japan. Used matter-of-factly, and it tells you a lot about how the island sees itself.

'Really, very' in Hokkaido dialect — namara samui, really cold. Along with 'shibareru' for a hard freeze, the two words you will hear all winter.

110 for police, 119 for fire and ambulance, free from any phone. Ambulance is free in Japan; the treatment afterwards is not.