Re-ticketed and Re-Visa’ed, I’m Re-turning to My Vacation

It has been two Yen losing days of paperwork and trains and an immigration near death experience that all started with a postcard in the mailbox earlier this week. About a week and a half ago I paid a visit to the immigration offices in Nara to see what needed to be done to renew my Visa. It was going to expire about a month before I left the country and so an extension was needed to avoid deportation. We don’t want that, now do we? The office was a bit of a hike from the train station but it was a nice day and after a few wrong turns I managed to find the place alright, fill out the necessary paperwork and afterwards was told to expect a postcard in the mail signifying my need to return to the office to finish up the entire process. That card, as I said, came this week. Before you can finish up the entire process, however, you need a special stamp from the Post Office. This is called a Shunyuinshi and at forty bucks it’s the most expensive stamp I’ve ever purchased. I’m really not sure what the purpose of the thing was but it was needed and so it was purchased. Alrighty, back to the immigration office. I expected this entire Visa renewal process to be a lot harder then it actually was. I think both visits in total took all of fifteen minutes. On this second one, the shortest of the two, I handed over my passport and my expensive stamp, was asked to take a seat, three minutes later was called to the desk and shown my one-year Visa renewal sticker in the passport and that was it. No fingerprints or bloodtests or questions about links to communism. Nada. For those of you out there reading this who might be sweating a Visa renewal let it be said that once your hear I think it is safe to say you can just stay here indefinitely provided you have work and don’t do anything exceptionally stupid. Though I had to put up with a few extra questions prior to landing my Visa to get here the renewal process was exceptionally nonchalant. In fact, the snooty clerk I dealt made the process feel unimportant. I really had some good answered prepared to those communism questions that never came. Sigh.

It wasn’t over yet. There was still my status card to update at the ward office back in Kashihara. If I caught the next train out, which I did, I figured I could make it to the offices before they closed, which I did. I imagined this would take a little longer, which it didn’t, and that I’d be waiting for the card update for at least forty-five minutes, which it wasn’t. Again, the process was a speedy one. The woman at the desk applied a new sticker to my card, jotted something down on the back of it in Japanese and it was over in under five minutes. Next were the photocopies and then I could head home to supper and whatever it was I was downloading to watch that night. The 7-11 is my photocopy spot because it’s the only place in the area with enough English on the screens to allow me to work the machine. Two copies and twenty cents later and that was done with. I had forgotten something, though, two somethings and these two somethings wouldn’t be discovered as missing somethings until the next day.

Supper.
Sunset.
Sleep.
Sunrise.
I discover two missing somethings. BIG missing somethings. I tore the place apart but couldn’t find them. I was now without my status card and most importantly I was now without my passport! The mind plays back yesterday like a movie reel in reverse. The 7-11. They had to have been left in the copier! But first…

On Christmas morning I received an email from the travel office telling me that my flight had been canceled. First UA ups their fuel charges and now this. I was asked if I wanted to take a next day flight with UA. This wouldn’t work because I’ve got a date with The Boss in Montreal on the 2nd and, also, I didn’t want to deal with UA anymore. The next best thing was a pricier flight out on the 1st of March but with less plane transfers. Actually, it was the same flight I took out here only backwards. Done deal. I would have to go into the city today to pay the remainder. I sort of remembered where this place was from the first time I went but I drew another crude map just in case. Okay, now for that passport. I went to the 7-11. They said it was at the police station. I went to the police station. They said it was at the bigger police station. I’ve never been to the bigger police station before. They drew me a map…sort of and with it in pocket I walked the seven or eight blocks up to the bigger police station where I was met with an English speaking desk clerk and by English speaking she knew about thirty words. Please note that at this point I am unsure if my passport has even been found. Nobody has been able to communicate this to me or, if they had, I didn’t understand it. They were giving me paperwork to fill out. It was all in Japanese. Why was I filling out paperwork, damn it! They asked me for my address. I didn’t know it by heart: “Why don’t you know?” I was asked. How do you answer a question like that? “Because I don’t write myself letters?” I replied. They seemed satisfied. The paperwork was taken away and out they came with a thin, brown envelope containing my passport. Hallelujah! We were reunited and I promised to never lose you again.


















Not much to add about my later trip to Osaka. I found the travel office, paid up and was re-ticketed for the new flight. Let’s hope these guys don’t decide to cancel on me as well!!! On the way back to the station I found something I’d hunt for each time I came to this area of Osaka: The Pokemon Center. My daughter is insane for these million little whatevers and I would look for the place for her and also a bit of curiosity of my own on what might lay inside. I had my camera with me as I was also hunting around the city for a lens cap to replace the one I’d lost whoknowswhere and so before heading home I spent about twenty minutes roaming about the Pokemon Center for Destiny. I tell you, if I were to take her into this place I’d have to also cart along a bucket to put the what remained of her head into once it exploded. She’d be on overload in this place. Everything was Pokemon. Plush toys, keychains, chans, games and even Pokemon food could be found here. The cash registers were Pokeballs and a large screen televisions played the latest adventures of the cash-cow that is Pikachu! So, Des, here’s some photos for you. Wish you could have been with me but then again I like your head right where it is and an explosion would be quite messy.

All right, with all this official stuff out of the way (I just stuffed everything the Company needs of me in the mailbox behind the apartment) I can enjoy the remaining days of my vacation as any hot-blooded bachelor would: Muppets!!!! Lots of Muppets!!!!! Oh, and peanut butter and banana sandwiches just like Elvis made. Hail to the king, baby!