Last night while I was intently trying to read about the formation of Israel in a children's world history book in the Akarenga library, I received a phone call from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanting to verify that I had indeed invited Vicky to come to Japan and requesting further documentation. (The fact that I am written on Hiro's place of residence certification - juminhyo - is insufficient proof of my address - foreigners have a different registration system...) They also wanted tax certification verfied by local govt. and not Hiro's employer...
I decided to take the documents into Kasumigaseki - where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is located - rather than have it sit in post boxes for the day around here - they had to be originals not emailable/faxable. It's a quick trip in - one train and a bit of a walk and I was there in less than 30 mins. The gaimusho, as it is called in Japanese, is like Fort Knox. There are two very narrow entrances and no-one passes without a pass. I suspected it was probably like so - there are quite fanatical political groups in Japan - mostly on the extreme right these days but historically also on the extreme left (notably the Japanese Red Army) that are violent and disruptive in intention. A number of key places are targetted by rightwingers - in particular the Russian and Chinese embassies but also seemingly the MOFA. Police are on 24 hour guard and have barricades to pull across in the event that a right wingers truck tries to drive past with loudspeakers blaring xenophobic obscenitites (like 'give us back the northern islands, you Russian swine...' ) A couple of times I have seen it near Hiro's work - police that are for the most part bored senseless by being on guard spring to action to block the way of offending vehicles... and the offending vehicles eventually retreat.... quite childish of them really.. and an awful waste of resources..
I asked one of the guards outside MOFA if there was some internal mail system that I could put my documents into... Apparently not.. but there was a PO directly opposite. I handed it over the counter and the documents should be there in the morning. The gaimusho official that I spoke to yesterday was very pleasant and it seemed like a formality to have the documents rather than any particular concern with the application.
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I will attach some pictures tomorrow - my camera is acting like it needs to be put out to pasture - a trip to Canon might be in order.
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