Hi there,

I'm in a bit of a tricky situation with my Japanese visas right now and I was hoping someone here might be able to provide a little insight into the risk involved in a potential solution I have.

I'm a Canadian university student here in Japan working for 8 months as an intern, on a special visa and COE issued for that purpose. I'm almost at the end of my internship and I plan to do some travelling for a few weeks after I'm done. I want to use a Japan Rail Pass because that will save me bucketloads of money, but I'm ineligible to do so with my current visa (you need a tourist visa).

But the good news is, I'm going to South Korea in a few weeks. I return from Korea on April 19th, so I was planning on re-entering not on my internship visa, but on a regular tourist visa instead, since that will cover the 3 more weeks I plan to stay, and allow me to use the Japan Rail Pass.

The only catch is that technically, my internship doesn't end until the 28th of April (9 days after I would re-enter Japan on my tourist visa), and I'm assuming that I'm not allowed to be employed (even for such a short period) with a tourist visa. I figure that since my internship ends so soon after re-entering Japan and the vast majority of time after re-entering would be spent as a tourist traveling, it couldn't be a very big deal and it is very unlikely that anyone would find out. But before I seriously consider doing this, I'd like to know if there are any significant risks involved in doing this.

Alternatively, is there any other feasible way to exit/re-enter Japan cheaply to change my visa one I'm finally done on the 28th, or is it even possible to just change your visa to tourist so long as you have no problem with the work visa being permanently ended?

Thanks for any insights anyone could give me on this issue!