For people moving to a foreign country, the simplest daily activities can become a nightmare.

Take Siddharth Bambawale, a 27-year-old accountant, who found that the best way to do his shopping was to call his Japanese friends on his cell phone and get them to explain his needs to the salesperson.

For Kapil Jain, also an accountant from India, surviving in Japan was about finding restaurants that served vegetarian food.