May 12th, 2006
114769855225617716
Grovel, fool, before the Ministry of Justice!
I’m at the immigration office right now, which is ever so conveniently located at the very tip of Tokyo, right on the bay near Shinagawa port. I guess if you get denied admission they want it to be a short trip back to the boat. After taking any number of expensive trains down to the harbor, you have the option of waiting and riding a bus to the office, or walking about fifteen minutes through drab lots of shipping companies and towering skyscrapers for housing who knows what kind of rich people (seems rather inconvenient to me, but I guess if you have enough money to live down here, you have a really nice car, and/or a chauffeur).
In any case, I am here to apply for extension to my visa, which is set to expire in about two weeks’ time. Now that I think about it, I probably should have done this before I went to France, since it takes two weeks to three months for processing, supposedly. However, I was so busy with getting my last project to master, there really wasn’t much time to think about it, and I guess I assumed it wouldn’t take too long since I received my last visa in short form, and this is a just a mere continuation of my work. If I do stay in the country past the end of the month, however, I could get into big trouble and forfeit my chances of ever coming here for work again, which would be most heinous. Hopefully it won’t come to this. I guess we’ll cross that bridge (ha ha) when we get to it.
In any case, I did my best to arrive here in a timely fashion this morning, and when I arrived there were 184 people in line ahead of me. It seems that applications are received (not processed) at the rate of about 1.3 a minute, and there are six counters. I guess I may be here until at least one-thirty or two. This is not very encouraging, but at least I am confident that I crossed all my Ts and dotted all my Is. I have, in addition to application form and registration documents, my work contract, a certified payment report, and a certified document verifying my company’s existence. There isn’t anything I could conceive of beyond this that they would need, since I filed my graduate degree the first time I applied for the visa. Now it’s just the waiting game. Luckily I remembered my PDA, keyboard, journal back log, and copy of A History of Japan for review. No shortage of things to do, I just wish I hadn’t forgotten my phone now. Email would be nice. Actually, when I was riding the train this morning I was looking at the ads for my ill-fated Vodafone, and thought about how last year having TV in the phone was a big selling point. I’ve probably only used the one in mine about four times, mainly for watching baseball games out of the corner of my eye when at my desk and too lazy to turn around and look at the main TV. Right now one girl is watching daytime drama on hers, and I feel a little envious. Then I remember that the analog TV drains the phone’s battery in about 40 minutes, and don’t feel so envious anymore.
It’s kind of a funny sounding name to me, The Ministry of Justice. I guess I watched too many action shows when I was a kid, because it makes me think too much of some dudes in flowing robes and laurelled wreaths towering far over me, in a darkened hall wielding ignominious scrolls and demanding complete submission. If you think about it, that’s not too far from the truth.
[Around noon I called in to work to check up on status and afterwards went downstairs to the convenient store to get something to eat. Just by coincidence I picked the checkout line that sold revenue stamps, at which point it dawned on me that I had completely forgot about the service fee and form for renewal. Boy was I lucky. I actually feel a little queasy now thinking about what would happen if after waiting half a day I got up there and found out I had forgotten part of my application. Whew. Maybe its good karma for returning that wallet last night.]
[Upon handing in my forms to the harried woman behind the counter, it came to my attention that I don't actually need the stamp until I get the application approved. Hah-huh.]
