Did you hear? I'm in Japan:
...but let me start somewhere.
...but let me start somewhere.
I’ll not bore you with timestamps and action-packed/less details like some NBC broadcast, but I will say this: getting to Japan wasn’t easy.
At some point, I thought it may be simple. I’m the type of person to over-think most situations and often expect the worse, but that type of thinking did not seem to have much of an impact while I was working on my student Visa to study here in Japan. Now that I am here at Kyoiku University and living atop a brilliant mountain amongst a fascinating group of international students, the past events seem largely unimportant. This is a falsehood. In fact, the visa application process, and subsequent issues I (and at least one other student from East Carolina University) went through are relevant and noteworthy.
The problem I refer to deals with what can happen when we take responsibility out of our own hands for any length of time during a visa application process; namely when we mail our passports to an embassy or travel agency. In the case of another student, his passport was lost, only to be found a few days later in pretty bad shape (read: shredded). The student only had one or two days left before his flight. He risked it all and got on his plane bound for Russia, with a layover in London, England. He made it to London, but that is as far as the airline was willing to risk taking him along. He stayed there for a couple days and then returned to North Carolina with just enough time left to register for a few classes and save his semester.
My story is similar, but with some odd twists and turns. In the end, my passport was located, but only after I experienced great deal of stress. In this situation what should you do? Report your passport stolen and quickly apply for a new one and then try to get a new visa as fast as you can? Do you cross your fingers and hope it appears? None of these choices would be unreasonable, but I would recommend one thing: try to prevent these types of situations completely. If possible, apply for your visa in person. If you have to go out of town (and you probably do) just make time for it. You probably will incur some costs, but how much is it worth to have something go wrong? Probably a lot… If you can’t go in person, then I advise you to do two things.
1. Use the safest shipping method you can. It may cost triple, but you really can’t put a price on your passport.
2. If you can, send your passport in a small box rather than an envelope. The small, flimsy envelopes can get stuck, destroyed, or lost in the parcel machines used by mail carriers
In the end, I was lucky. I received my passport, safe and sound, with both my Russian Visa and Japanese Visa intact. I stuck it out on the Outer Banks through Hurricane Irene and had a good last weekend with my friend and housemate Jim. Some great thanks to Jim by the way who is kind enough to watch my things while I am gone for these months. I don’t know what I would do without him. After the storm, I made it to Moscow to spend some much deserved/needed quality time with Julia. I returned to North Carolina for a few days and had a great time hanging out with my friends Will and Rachel who were kind enough to watch my car while I was in Russia and pick me up at the airport. Will’s mixing skills are improving so fast that I can’t help but smile when he’s up there syncing tracks. Lastly, a big thanks to Orrin who shelters me whenever I need, and took me from Greenville to the Raleigh so I could make it to Japan. He is watching the Subaru while I’m here, so I better not anger him.
Cheers to anyone I left out. Stay tuned for the next chapter. I promise to include what you are really interested in: Japan …and fan service:
Haskett
