A c h u b l u e

Today has been a day of waiting. Waiting for the train. Waiting in line. Waiting for my flight.

It been a real experience of just using the transit system in Japan. Even though there is the main Japan Rail System (JR). There is also a multitude of subways systems. Note I did say multitude of subway system(S) because each of the different subway lines in Japan are owned by different companies. So with each company if you wish to use their services, you will need to pay their fares. Which Is not too bad if you use the Japan’s version of the Octopus Card. But even that has different brands. Each district uses a different brand of Card. So for people like me that travelled to multiple places, getting a Card would be useless.

Waiting in line. I was in line for 2.5 hours. Apparently that is how long it takes to get sushi at the best place in the infamous fish market. The wait was long but it was worth every second we were there sitting in front of that sushi bar. This place was small. At one time this place could only take 16 customers at one time. From the very first piece, Gum and I both knew the rest of the sushi meal was going to be good. The first piece was fatty tuna toro. I normally do not like tuna but if I could get this quality of fatty toro in Vancouver… omg… Other things like Uni was totally amazing. No fishy smell from any of the pieces. Now I know why Jeff got hooked on Uni from this place. The most surprising piece of sushi was the Salmon Roe. In Vancouver, salmon roe has to be the next fishiest thing next to Spanish Mackerel (for me at least). There was no fishy smell or taste from the Salmon Roe. In fact, there was this little bit of sweet and salty taste. It was amazing. At this place you could order a set or order piece by piece, I order this set that included 10 pieces of sushi, plus a maki roll, miso soup and another piece of my choice. Seriously this was the best sushi I have ever had. I don`t know what I`m going to do once I get back to Vancouver. Kura will never taste the same again.

Now… I`m sitting here at Narita Airport. Gate 42. I have been here for almost two hours now. And there is another hour to go before I can board my plane. As I site here I can reflect on the last 13 days…

Continued…

today after a quick trip to the Studio Ghibli Museum (which by the way was super cool). I headed to the immigration offices in Tokyo. The immigration office was near Shinagawa (JR) Station. Now you know the office is big and probably busy when this immigration office has its own bus route from the train station. But just how busy?

Well after getting some quick information, I headed upstairs where I knew I would be in a line for a while. But HOLY CRAP!!! When I got upstairs, the entire floor was packed with people. Went to the first counter where this lady told me to go, grabbed a ticket with number 817. Looked up at the calling number, 568… And from the information that this lady gave me, I may have to wait in another line after this one. Oh and did I mention that the offices were closing at 4:00PM and it was 3:30PM when I got there?

After I grabbed a number, I saw everyone else there had this form, so I found the form and filled it out. 568 601 569 602 570 603… yeah the numbers didn’t go up normally (some weird Japanese system). So I looked around and saw that the other counter which I was suppose to go to “after” this line-up was somewhat free… So I decided to gamble and try my luck there.

Got to the counter, a Japanese Guy, asked how he could help. I told him I needed to get a Japan visa. He looked at me kind of confused. So I showed him my passport, and explained to him that I didn’t get my visa sticker when I went through customs. Like everyone that has checked my passport so far, they frantically flipped through all the pages. Then he asked his female colleague to help me out. She ask me the same thing and I explained. I got off the plane, went through customs, they gave me my passport back without the visa sticker. She was also kind of stumped. Then she asked me for some proof that I entered the country “legally” so I gave her my boarding pass and Travelocity Confirmation.

Then she asked me to explain again how I got into this country and again I told her, got to the Narita Airport, went through customs, they checked my passport and gave me back my passport and let me through. Then she asked me who told me to go to immigration and I told her that when I was exchanging my JR Pass (unlimited train ride pass) they saw that I had to Japan visa sticker and told me to go to immigration. Again she give me this weird look. Like she had a hard time figuring out what JR Pass had to do with immigration. Then she told me to wait and she disappeared in to back of the office with my passport, boarding pass, and printed confirmation. When she came back, she had another person with her (guessing it was her supervisor). The supervisor asked me to explain once again how this all happened and again I explained, this is my first time in Japan, went through customs, gave them my passport and they gave it back to me. The she says to me, “no visa, big problem.” The first thought that came to my mind was like “no shit it is a big problem.” After talking to me, she told me to wait by the counter and she disappeared in the back of the office with everything.

As I waited, they starting to close down the other counters. At one point, I saw one of the first lady that help me walk out of the office with her coat, bag and umbrella. I was like oh crap, they’re going home for the day, hope they have not forgotten about me… I don’t want to come back tomorrow… I don’t want to leave with out my passport…

After another 30 minute wait… the supervisor came back and talked to one of the counter clerks and he came to me and gave me back everything and showed me my passport with visa.

LEGAL IN JAPAN NOW!!!

PS met up with Ryan and Albert, who have been in Japan teach english and we had an awesome time just eating and talking about life.

omg… we went kobe for dinner. and at this place where we had decided to enjoy some kobe beef, we got their dinner special which include raw chicken… RAW CHICKEN!!! at first i was like “oh… tuna tataki. mmmm it’s pretty good… a bit chewy… but good…” but my other travel partners were like “no way… this cannot be tuna…” so we looked at the menu again and figured out it was chicken…

we were all like… “we are going to get totally sick and i might have to use my medical travel insurance. ” lol…

well all of us are still alive and not sick… PTL!!!

oh when we ordered… the other two want this dinner combo. I wanted this special dinner that was posted on the outside behind the place. at first they were like… we don’t have a dinner special. until i showed them the waiter was like oh… than talked to this other waiter for a bit in japanese and came back to use and give us the following BS.

the dinner combo (my friends’ ordered) could not be ordered as a single order. it cannot be ordered as two orders. but if we ordered three orders that they can do…  we were like WTF!!!… but by that time we were hungry and didn’t care any more so we just ordered three combos