I was staying in a relatively small town called Fujimino, which is located in the suburbs of Tokyo. The town is quiet and mostly consists of small buildings. On the other hand, it is not a problem to find grocery stores, clothing stores or restaurants. I didn't have to commute to the office every day, which was great. One disadvantage of the location is that it is quite difficult to meet other interns who usually live in Tokyo.

The town is called Fujimino, and while it may geographically appear to be a part of Tokyo, it has its own identity (and is actually located in another prefecture of Japan). If you're lucky, you can see Mt Fuji from some places in the town.

The location is good for day trips around Tokyo (you can get anywhere in or around Tokyo in 0.5-1.5 hours). It is also close to Kawagoe (walkable) which is famous for its historical architecture.

My internship was at KDDI Research and I was part of the cryptography section of the information security group. As for the organization, everything was crystal clear and everything went as I expected (or even better than expected), according to the internship description. My colleagues were very nice and so was my supervisor, we usually had lunch together.

I was asked to make experiments in order to optimize module-lattice based key encapsulation mechanism (ML-KEM). My work had two phases. Firstly I was studying the topic and after that I did some experiments. The last day I did final presentation about it. The topic was very challenging for me, but I had big freedom in planning and it was great opportunity to get familiar with technology which is likely to be widely used in the future.

I got 80000 JPY for the first month and 64000 JPY for the second one. Accomodation was paid by the employer so the whole amount remained for food and travelling. It was sufficient. I did not have to commute every day to the office and back, which also saved me a lot of money. If you want to go to other cities, it may not be enough because of transporation costs.

There was not any significant problems with language barrier in the place of internship. In daily life (restaurants, shops etc.) your English level usually does not matter because the majority of people prefer Japanese and they know only a few English words. But it is fun, very valuable experience and great opportunity to learn at least something from Japanese.

Accomodation was paid and completely arranged by the employer.

First I went to Tokyo from Narita airport alone and then I was accompanied by member of IASTE who helped me meet members of company. Travelling from the aiport alone was not any problem, because it did not require any complicated transfers and there were many people prepared to help foreigners at the airport.

It was one of the best part of internship. We were meeting during events arranged by IASTE, but I also met some of them in my free time.

In the place of my internship running was possible and there were some good places for running. I did not try any other sport. I was lucky that I experienced some festivals in Japan and especially the one in Fujimino (the city where I stayed) which was an interesting insight to the culture.

Japanese food is simply great. I enjoyed fish and seafood (especially raw one). I tried many types of meat that I have never tried before and usually I did not know what I am eating but in 99 % it was very good. Definitely try sushi, sashimi, gyudon, ramen, udon, suba, tempura, takoyaki and definitely matcha ice cream. But do not worry if you are vegetarian, you have to be more picky but there are still options. If you have an allergy, it may be little bit tricky in restaurants due to the language barrier, but apps for visual translation works better than expected. Price of lunch is around 1000 JPY (~140 CZK) in restaurant or around 500 JPY (~70 CZK) if you buy lunch in a supermarket (2025).

WhatsApp, Discord, Messenger, email

Enjoy it as much as you can! Also attend IASTE events, because it is great opportunity to meet a lot of nice and interesting people.

Passport, debit card (with good exchange rate to JPY if possible), phone (and laptop), adapter for Japanese sockets. Other things can be purchased in Japan usually even cheaper than in our country.

Being in Japan (great food, well-organized, safe), working on cutting-edge topic

Excellent. We were using WhatsApp to communicate and before each event we received registration form in advance with detailed description.