Mari’s Stamp of Approval

Hooray!! We have internet in our new house finally!!Chris is really good at paperwork and bureaucracy, but I took over the hoop-jumping for the Japanese parking permit. I had to get stuff approved from the on-base housing office, then take it and car paperwork to the police station where they told me the landlord needed to fill in an address only labeled in Japanese. Wait—come to think of it, ALL the forms were exclusively in Japanese. So I took the form back over to the Japanese realtor, who filled it in, went back to the police station, who sent me to the stamp office, where I paid the fees for parking permission. I love it when visas and payments come in the form of stamps!! I LOVE STAMPS! Stamps make bureaucracy fun…well, almost. The police station kept these, so I smartly took pictures of them. I would have bought my own set, but they’re $26!

Anywho, the police station finally accepted them, sent me home, sent someone to my house to measure my parking space, called me to quiz me about Chris even though I explained three times that I was doing all the paperwork “Ok, well when your husband comes back to the police station, have him bring the car inspection.” “I’ll be sure to bring the inspection when I come in.” “Right…ok, have your husband do it.”) Finally, I picked it up this week, waited while they debated making me start the process over because of a measurement discrepancy with the last owner of the car (what!?), then gave me the parking approval. Yay!

In victory I headed over to the base officials to get the decals needed to drive on base. The guy looked at my victory and smiled sickly.
“Your husband has to change your address with the Japanese Land Office.”
“The what?”
“The land office. It’s far away.”
“Ok, well can I get the paperwork so I can bring everything back ready?”
“Do you have a power of attorney?”
“Yes.”
“I need to see it.”
“I don’t carry it with me. It’s with my important documents. Can I just get the paperwork so I can finish it and bring it back with the power of attorney?”
The guy swivelled his chair around and smirked. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
So many failures per victory. Sigh.

Thanks to our internet, I can read the news/my email/blogs now and not feel completely disconnected. Usually this is good. Today it was kind of a bummer because: