Bureaucratic Stuff

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Today was "make sure I am legal" day. I woke up around 6:15 AM and couldn't get back to sleep, so I just got up and answered some emails and the like. Then I headed down towards Yokohama to get to work, to pick up my paperwork, and then to the immigration office.

THIS SEEMS LIKE A RELATIVELY EASY TASK. NO. NO IT WAS NOT.

I left Sam and Fitz's place at 8:30 AM and didn't get to work until 10:30. It normally wouldn't take that long except that WOW DID I GET LOST. Okay, Japan, listen. I have a beef with you. You can't just shove stations all willy-nilly and not mark them. Every time I get dropped off somewhere NEAR a station, it takes me 10 minutes or longer to FIGURE OUT WHERE THE STATION ACTUALLY IS. There are not large SIGNS. It is never it's own BUILDING. alsjdfkjsdsa and of course I can't figure out where the heck I am so I go in the wrong direction and am like hmm I think I should have hit the office by now, so I had to get directions from a 7-11. And a very patient lady who dealt with my embarrassingly awful Japanese.

I finally got to work to get my paperwork, and then walked 25 minutes down to the JR station south of everything so I could get over to immigration. I left work at like 10:35. I got to the station I needed at noon. FOR THE LOVE OF- SERIOUSLY. And then I had to take a bus over to the immigration office. Oh, sure, there are signs, but the other problem is that the signs have an arrow and you follow them AND THEN YOU END UP JUST SORT OF LOST IN NOTHING because the next arrow isn't for like a block. Whyyyyyy lol.

Immigration was basically like dealing with the American DMV: everything is slow, there are 15 crying babies, and you hate your life. It took over 2 hours to get done with things there in a process that is probably more complicated than it needed to be. In fact, it took so long that I couldn't make it to the ward office to get my residence card. But I did take some pictures as I was re-walking my path back into Tokyo. I really like the area I'll be working/living in - it's pretty quiet and nice. I didn't get back to the apartment until after 5 THE WHOLE DAY WAS THIS ONE STUPID THING MY GOD UGGHHHH.

Today I managed to: get lost, screw up how to put my fare into the bus, get lost again, spend only 198 yen on food.

There were a couple moments of 'yay in Japan' but mostly it was 'dear god this is taking forever' and 'I'm so jet-lagged ugh must die'. Hopefully once things get settled, it will be easier. I knew these days were going to pretty much suck LOL.

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Photos

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Walking from Sam & Fitz's place in the morning.

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The vending machine that denied me CC Lemon.

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Seal on the ground.

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Waiting for the train.

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En route near work.

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Another seal.

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The really pretty area between the station and where I live.

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Paddies!

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And a kid walking through them.