The Japanese Travel Learning Curve.

[sechan19]

So. When I booked my flights for the Tokyo language program I'm participating in this spring I made a boo-boo, and I freely admit it. I booked a set of dates that put me in Japan for 91 days, thinking (rightly) that I was booking a set of dates that was exactly three months long and (wrongly) that I was therefore within the limits of Japan's visa exemption agreement with the US. Except, of course, Japan's visa exemption agreement with the US is for 90 days. (Some countries get three month agreements and some countries get 90 day agreements. It's one of life's mysterious facts.) And the Japanese authorities will, apparently, deport my ass straightaway for having an itinerary that violates that stricture - even by a day.

Whoops.

My next step was to try identifying some options. I contacted the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco and asked about visa options, and I contacted my travel agent to see what could be done about a quick change.

To make a long story short, I don't qualify for a student visa even though I'm going over as a student because I will be doing two weeks of sightseeing at the end of my trip. And sightseeing is, as it turns out, not a sanctioned activity in Japan when you're there on a student visa. I also cannot keep my two weeks of sightseeing with a flight change without paying an exorbitant amount of fees to do so. Translation = I'm only getting six days of sightseeing time.

And that kind of sucks because I had some bitchin' plans set up, but it's not the end of the world. After all, this won't be my only trip to Japan by a long shot. And anyway... now I know the truth about travel in Japan - although I should have expected something like this from a nation that spent 250 years butchering practically anyone who tried to get into the country from a foreign nation.

And knowing is half the battle.

Comments

[chainmaile.livejournal.com]

Yo, Joe!

for you

[alonewolverine.livejournal.com]

The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow
Set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport over the pharaoh
A little while later the Pharisees dragged comb through the meadow
Do you remember what they called up to you and me, in our window?

There is a rusty light on the pines tonight
Sun pouring wine, lord, or marrow
Down into the bones of the birches
And the spires of the churches
Jutting out from the shadows
The yoke, and the axe, and the old smokestacks and the bale and the barrow
And everything sloped like it was dragged from a rope
In the mouth of the south below

We've seen those mountains kneeling, felten and grey
We thought our very hearts would up and melt away
From that snow in the night time
Just going
And going
And the stirring of wind chimes
In the morning
In the morning
Helps me find my way back in
From the place where I have been

And, Emily - I saw you last night by the river
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water
Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever,
In a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror

Anyhow - I sat by your side, by the water
You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger
Though all I knew of the rote universe were those pleiades loosed in december
I promised you I�d set them to verse so I'd always remember

That the meteorite is a source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee

And the meteorite's just what causes the light
And the meteor's how it's perceived
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee

You came and lay a cold compress upon the mess I'm in
Threw the window wide and cried; Amen! Amen! Amen!
The whole world - stopped - to hear you hollering
You looked down and saw now what was happening

The lines are fadin' in my kingdom
Though I have never known the way to border 'em in
So the muddy mouths of baboons and sows and the grouse and the horse and the hen
Grope at the gate of the looming lake that was once a tidy pen
And the mail is late and the great estates are not lit from within
The talk in town's becoming downright sickening

In due time we will see the far butte lit by a flare
I've seen your bravery, and I will follow you there
And row through the night time
Gone healthy
Gone healthy all of a sudden
In search of the midwife
Who could help me
Who could help me
Help me find my way back in
There are worries where I�ve been

Say, say, say in the lee of the bay; don't be bothered
Leave your troubles here where the tugboats shear the water from the water
Flanked by furrows, curling back, like a match held up to a newspaper
Emily, they'll follow your lead by the letter
And I make this claim, and I'm not ashamed to say I know you better
What they've seen is just a beam of your sun that banishes winter

Let us go! Though we know it's a hopeless endeavor
The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined and hold us close forever
Though there is nothing would help me come to grips with a sky that is gaping and yawning
There is a song I woke with on my lips as you sailed your great ship towards the morning

Come on home, the poppies are all grown knee-deep by now
Blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow
Peonies nod in the breeze and while they wetly bow, with
Hydrocephalitic listlessness ants mop up-a their brow

And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour
The butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours
And my clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines
Come on home, now! All my bones are dolorous with vines

Pa pointed out to me, for the hundredth time tonight
The way the ladle leads to a dirt-red bullet of light
Squint skyward and listen -
Loving him, we move within his borders:
Just asterisms in the stars' set order

We could stand for a century
Starin'
With our heads cocked
In the broad daylight at this thing

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

There's no way to claim to be a student for the whole three months and then do your sightseeing anyway?

When I went to Japan, my program was about 4 months long - end of March through end of July. I don't remember what I claimed on my visa application or anything, in terms of how long I was planning on being there, but I ended up with a one-year visa, and when my program was up in July, I went sightseeing for two weeks, arranged with my host parents to pay them to stay the extra time even after the program was over, and it all went quite smoothly.

hmmm... good luck sorting it out!

[reteva.livejournal.com]

I think it would have been possible to get the visa if my language program had been willing to help me do so. However, they refused. I guess they don't go through the visa process for students in the ten-week program. [shrug] So it goes, you know?