Ahhh!!! Bureaucracy

I love the smell of paperwork in the morning. Er... mid-afternoon. Last month we went and filed the forms to get an extension on our visas. That all went fine and dandy like sour candy. If you need a refresher on how our day went check the archives. A couple of days ago we got the postcard from the immigration bureau stating that out visa was ready and that we were required to present ourselves at the immigration office with our passports, the postcard, and a revenue stamp (like a postage stamp showing that we payed the proper fees). I came home at lunch and we jumped on a train to the capital city of Otsu, which is about half an hour away by train.

We made it to Otsu and realized we could not remember which floor of the building the office was on. The sign in the lobby was all in Japanese making it next to impossible to read. For us at least. So we had to take care of it the old fashioned way. We pushed the button for floor two and proceeded to check each floor for the office we needed. When we finally got to the fifth floor the elevator door closed before Jenny and Logan could get off and they went off to the sixth floor while I found the office on the fifth floor. Jenny and Logan waited for me to join them one floor above me while I waited for them to return to the fifth floor. Well they finally came back down and Logan told Jenny that she should not push any more buttons in the elevator. We walked down the hall to the immigration office. We waited while they found the proper papers to place into our passports.

When they did get it all taken care of we were then told that we would have to return to Omihachiman and go to city hall and have our alien registration card altered to reflect the new visa number. On the walk, in the blazing sun and oppressive heat, we joked that we would probably be told to return to Otsu so that they could verify that the Gaijin Card had been changed. Which lead to the speculation that we would have to go back to city hall to verify the verification. Well in the end we got the ID card changed and updated with little difficulty, and we did not even have to have it verified. Which is good. Now our visa is extended for another year.