I said I would wait to get back my passport to talk about what happened. I was curious to see how works the Japanese bureaucracy before making a post. So today I got my passport back. So… let’s start from the beginning.
08-10-11 17 :43 :32 – Get out of the train and notice that my passport is missing. Look around in the station as much as I can. No passport. Holy crap! A little bit anxious, half amused and really frustrated, I tell myself that I’ll call the embassy as soon as I enter the apartment.
08-10-11 18 :14 :23 – Calling the embassy. Now it starts. First tumble on a pre-recorded English, then French, then Japanese message. Mostly saying that the embassy is closed on Saturday and Sunday. And that Monday they will be closed too cause it’s the national sport day. Aaah crap. Nothing much to do, I’ll call Tuesday.
08-10-14 08 :25 :47 – Taking a small stop to the found objects of the metro station asking if someone brought a Canadian passport in. The guy there tells me to wait and make at least half a dozen different calls. Nope nothing on this line. Did the guy just called every single station of this line? Yup he did. Well, thank you, but disappointing. Guess I’ll have to call the embassy after the classes.
08-10-14 12 :50 :21 – Calling the embassy. A funny little message in English, then French, then Japanese. Choose your language. French. Choose which of the following options. #2 lost passport office and urgency. Fall on the vocal box that tells me that the office is currently closed. But if I let my name and contact information they should call me back in the next two working days. Yeah, lucky I’m not in urgency. Let my name, cell phone number and hang up.
08-10-14 17 :05 :23 – Cell phone ringing. Answering : « Moshi-moshi. » A kind of shy voice speaking more or less well in French ask me if I called the embassy for a lost passport. Well yes, else you wouldn’t have my phone number won’t you? So I start explaining in French that I lost my passport last Saturday. That I already checked the lost objects at the subway station. With a lot of hesitation she asks me if I need a new passport. Duh…. Yes! At this moment, she tries to explain to me the procedure to get a new one. But it doesn’t work well cause her French is not really good. So I tell her that she can do it in English if she is more comfortable with it. She said thank you and started to explain in English. Wish I told her to continue in French, it was worst in English. So basically the conversation just keep switching to English, to French, to Japanese, to French again, to English... and so on. After a moment, I understand that I need my birth certificate, the address of 2 people who know me for longer than 2 years and my passport copy. Well, at least I have the passport copy. Then, she asks me if I went to the police station to report de the lost. Well no… What are the chances of actually finding my passport now. She then tells me that I have to go to the police to I can fill an official form that will make it official that I have officially lost my passport and then they will give me an official paper that will officially say that I officially lost my passport and they can now officially ask for a new official passport... or something like that. What the … ? Oh and she then tells me the passport office is only opens on weekdays from 9h30 to 12h30. Yeah… only getting better. I honestly don’t want to miss classes. Already hard enough without skipping school. But well, I guess that a new passport is actually more important.
08-10-16 12 :45 :21 – Near the school there is what the Japanese call a police box. Those are little stations for neighbourhood patrolling. In the morning you would be able to see maybe 10 policemen planning their patrolling day. It’s really small, but actually has all the useful things you could find in a main police station. So go to the police officer there, tell him I’ve lost my passport. The officer gives me a form to fill. Name, address, phone number, description of the item lost. You know the drill. When I’m about to finish, comes in a second officer that look at me. Ask a few things to the policeman sitting with me. Then decide he stops my form filling… well that sounds dirty. Anyway. He tries to explain something that I don’t get cause he is speaking to fast and refuse to slow down. He then takes the phone and passes it to me. There is an operator speaking English. Tells me that I have to go to the main police station so I can fill the form to have my official paper for my officially lost passport. While he is telling me that, the second policeman is showing me on a map where to go. It’s near. One stop at the subway. Should be easy. Ok.
08-10-16 16 :33 :56 – It took me almost two hours to find the police station. God I hate those Japanese map. Enter the station, go to the reception. Yeah Canadian, yeah lost my passport, yeah second floor. Go to the second floor. The reception there send me to third floor who tells me to go back at the second floor to take a formulary that I should picked up on the way to the third floor. Fill out the formulary, which is the exact same thing I had almost finished earlier in the police box. Got to be kidding. Hand the formulary to the officer there. He tells me to wait while they enter the information in the computer. 20 minutes later! Does not compute! Apparently the guy doesn’t understand what I wrote so he asks me to do it again. 20 minutes later the guy comes back with my official paper of officially lost passport. Back to the first floor where they will compute that and give me another official paper for my officially lost passport. At the reception of the first floor I hand over the official paper to the official officer who officially declares that I have another official form to fill out. Holy hell! Name, address, phone number. Hand over the paper, get a new official paper for my officially lost passport. I can now go to the embassy. But not today cause anyway they are closed at this hour.
08-10-17 13 :42 :08 – PHONE! The embassy. Someone found my passport and brought it to the police. How amazing. No more bureaucracy for me! Forgive me if I’m a bit naive but I can’t help it. So, anyway, where’s my passport, huh? The intelligent thing to do would have been to say to the girl at the phone to wait for me and I’ll go directly to the embassy to get the information. But you know, I’m stupid sometimes. So I ask her. Maybe I forgot that I was in a restaurant in a basement right in the middle of Tokyo, but the line was really crappy. And I don’t hear half the information the girl is giving me in French/English/Japanese. I try to go up one floor. The line is better, but too much noise from Tokyo. Try to go higher while I write the information. When I’m nearing the third floor she asks me if I have an e-mail. Would be easier of course than noting all that on a scrap of paper. HAHA! So I start: “A”, “C”, “I”, “D”, “E”. Then come the underbar « _ ». Yeah, try to explain what is an under bar (_) to someone who doesn’t understand neither English nor French well on a half shitty phone line that threaten to cut every second from now. Just forget it. Impossible. Then I just tell myself if can get the phone number right I’ll just call and ask for the whereabouts of the station. SO make the girl repeat at least five times to make sure the phone number is right. Excellent. I will be able to handle myself from there.
08-10-19 10 :13 :18 – I don’t know exactly why I didn’t call sooner, but I didn’t. Sunday morning, just spent the night clubbing and went to sleep in a capsule hotel.
Just need to make a quicky about capsules hotels. Those things are amazing. You enter the first floor, rent a room from a machine. A guy gives you a key to you can store your shoes, give him back the key, he gives you a new one. You go to the second floor. Lockers. You put your clothes in, and inside you’ll find a bathrobe and a towel. There are showers there and a laundry. On the third floor is a huge salon with 3 huge televisions. 7th floor are our cabins. Actually 1 meter width, 1meter height and less than 2 meters long. Not too bad. You have a sheet, can watch TV, listen to radio, and have you own alarm clock. ON the TV you can see animation, sports, news and pornography. Actually the worst pornography I ever saw. If the pornography was that bad in North America no doubt we would like animation more. In the morning you wake up, go to the bath room. There is individuals’ toothbrush, individuals’ razor. 3 different perfumes. It’s really not that bad. In the morning you have free coffee available on the first floor. I don’t have pics was too drunk to even think about taking some.
Anyway, Sunday morning, I call the station where is supposed to be my officially lost passport. The first thing I hear is a “moshi-moshi”. This is fairly strange for an official government office. I hang up and double check the phone number the second time I try. Japanese phone numbers can be fairly longs so it’s easy to make mistakes. Again, same girl, same “moshi-moshi”. Ok. I try to ask her about a lost passport. Silence and then moshi-moshi. Hang up. I go to the reception of the hotel and try to ask to the guy there if he knows the place I noted on my scrap of paper. Never heard of. His coworkers say the same. Holy fuck!!! Guess I’ll have to go to the embassy.
08-10-22 16 :30 :12 – Entering the embassy. Took me almost 4 hours to find it. In facts, the building is easy to find, but the actual embassy entrance is not. Without any indication in French or English and without finding any katakana saying Canada, I walked past it almost 5 times. Actual walked around the building 4 times. And except for the suspicious looks of the guards watching me, no reaction at all. The entrance is in fact on the fourth floor of a hotel, and you have to go all the way around outside to find an escalator. A pain really. SO I enter. The reception has a superb sign all chromed saying English/Français. Cool! Going to the reception, and telling to the woman there that I lost a passport and I’m here to get the information to get it back. I think she lost me after I said “Bonjour!” She tells me to wait and she goes fetch a Japanese woman that understand French better than her. Ok to me. She could actually really talk it well, but not understand. Took me about 5 times to make her understand that I wasn’t there to report a lost passport but to actually get the information to fetch it back. She then says to me to go to the third floor. Down to the third floor. The passport and urgency office. Which is supposed to be closed at this hour is actually closed. Yeah! But there’s a guy waiting there, so I take a sit. Not long after, a woman comes to me and asks me in English if I’m here for a passport. Yeah... more or less. I ask her if she speaks French. Her fingers tell me « Just a little bit. » Well, congratulation miss you just found a good excuse to practice cause there’s no way I’m gonna speak English in an official government building where I should be able to get services in French according to the Canadian law. 30 minutes later she understands. Then with a suspicious look, ask me if I have some ID. I get out my passport copy, my sun card, my 2 hospitals cards, my Gundam’s mecha driver card, my library card and the scrap of paper with my host family information on it. Am I tired of all this? Hell yes I am! She just takes my passport copy and tells me to wait a moment. She comes back with a paper holding all the information I need, including which subway line I should take and where to disembark and which exit to take. Cool. Then I realise that the school is just near it. Holy cow in heaven!?! Why me? She then tells me that I just go there, show them this case file number and it’s gonna be quick. Cool! Thank you very much miss.
08-10-23 15 :08 :20 – Entering the Keishicyo Isitsubutsu Center (Yup! I had a scrap of paper near me to write this one down on the computer.) I walked from school. To come in the neighbour where this police station is took me only 20 minutes. But to actually find the building took me near two hours. Did I ever tell that I hate Japanese maps? Well, I fucking hate Japanese maps! I found it after asking to ten different people who each single ones of them pointed a different direction to me. I have a really huge thank you that goes to the woman of the pharmacy who actually took 2 minutes of her time on the job to walk me to the building. DOMO ARIGATO GOZAIMASU!!! SO enter the station, which is in fact the lost and found objects office of Tokyo. GO to the reception. I hand over the paper with the file number on it and tell the guy it is a passport. He then hand me a formulary to fill. What the!!!! Name, address, phone number. Anything you want I don’t care just gives me back my passport. Give him back is piece of paper. Then tell me to wait. He comes back later with the passport in his hands. JOY!!! I reach to get it, and he step back asking me the name on the passport, date of birth, passport serial number. WHAT!?! Give him the information. Just hand over my passport you piece of sh*&!!! He gives me back my passport and I get the hell out of there.
So that’s it. Now I have officially retrieved my officially lost passport. I can say it was a good day. I don’t have pics of course, no one want to see office buildings pictures. But I do stumble on one thing while in the subway. Since you will only see that kind of decoration in a subway in Japan I thought I should take picture. I really like that.
Cya.
08-10-11 17 :43 :32 – Get out of the train and notice that my passport is missing. Look around in the station as much as I can. No passport. Holy crap! A little bit anxious, half amused and really frustrated, I tell myself that I’ll call the embassy as soon as I enter the apartment.
08-10-11 18 :14 :23 – Calling the embassy. Now it starts. First tumble on a pre-recorded English, then French, then Japanese message. Mostly saying that the embassy is closed on Saturday and Sunday. And that Monday they will be closed too cause it’s the national sport day. Aaah crap. Nothing much to do, I’ll call Tuesday.
08-10-14 08 :25 :47 – Taking a small stop to the found objects of the metro station asking if someone brought a Canadian passport in. The guy there tells me to wait and make at least half a dozen different calls. Nope nothing on this line. Did the guy just called every single station of this line? Yup he did. Well, thank you, but disappointing. Guess I’ll have to call the embassy after the classes.
08-10-14 12 :50 :21 – Calling the embassy. A funny little message in English, then French, then Japanese. Choose your language. French. Choose which of the following options. #2 lost passport office and urgency. Fall on the vocal box that tells me that the office is currently closed. But if I let my name and contact information they should call me back in the next two working days. Yeah, lucky I’m not in urgency. Let my name, cell phone number and hang up.
08-10-14 17 :05 :23 – Cell phone ringing. Answering : « Moshi-moshi. » A kind of shy voice speaking more or less well in French ask me if I called the embassy for a lost passport. Well yes, else you wouldn’t have my phone number won’t you? So I start explaining in French that I lost my passport last Saturday. That I already checked the lost objects at the subway station. With a lot of hesitation she asks me if I need a new passport. Duh…. Yes! At this moment, she tries to explain to me the procedure to get a new one. But it doesn’t work well cause her French is not really good. So I tell her that she can do it in English if she is more comfortable with it. She said thank you and started to explain in English. Wish I told her to continue in French, it was worst in English. So basically the conversation just keep switching to English, to French, to Japanese, to French again, to English... and so on. After a moment, I understand that I need my birth certificate, the address of 2 people who know me for longer than 2 years and my passport copy. Well, at least I have the passport copy. Then, she asks me if I went to the police station to report de the lost. Well no… What are the chances of actually finding my passport now. She then tells me that I have to go to the police to I can fill an official form that will make it official that I have officially lost my passport and then they will give me an official paper that will officially say that I officially lost my passport and they can now officially ask for a new official passport... or something like that. What the … ? Oh and she then tells me the passport office is only opens on weekdays from 9h30 to 12h30. Yeah… only getting better. I honestly don’t want to miss classes. Already hard enough without skipping school. But well, I guess that a new passport is actually more important.
08-10-16 12 :45 :21 – Near the school there is what the Japanese call a police box. Those are little stations for neighbourhood patrolling. In the morning you would be able to see maybe 10 policemen planning their patrolling day. It’s really small, but actually has all the useful things you could find in a main police station. So go to the police officer there, tell him I’ve lost my passport. The officer gives me a form to fill. Name, address, phone number, description of the item lost. You know the drill. When I’m about to finish, comes in a second officer that look at me. Ask a few things to the policeman sitting with me. Then decide he stops my form filling… well that sounds dirty. Anyway. He tries to explain something that I don’t get cause he is speaking to fast and refuse to slow down. He then takes the phone and passes it to me. There is an operator speaking English. Tells me that I have to go to the main police station so I can fill the form to have my official paper for my officially lost passport. While he is telling me that, the second policeman is showing me on a map where to go. It’s near. One stop at the subway. Should be easy. Ok.
08-10-16 16 :33 :56 – It took me almost two hours to find the police station. God I hate those Japanese map. Enter the station, go to the reception. Yeah Canadian, yeah lost my passport, yeah second floor. Go to the second floor. The reception there send me to third floor who tells me to go back at the second floor to take a formulary that I should picked up on the way to the third floor. Fill out the formulary, which is the exact same thing I had almost finished earlier in the police box. Got to be kidding. Hand the formulary to the officer there. He tells me to wait while they enter the information in the computer. 20 minutes later! Does not compute! Apparently the guy doesn’t understand what I wrote so he asks me to do it again. 20 minutes later the guy comes back with my official paper of officially lost passport. Back to the first floor where they will compute that and give me another official paper for my officially lost passport. At the reception of the first floor I hand over the official paper to the official officer who officially declares that I have another official form to fill out. Holy hell! Name, address, phone number. Hand over the paper, get a new official paper for my officially lost passport. I can now go to the embassy. But not today cause anyway they are closed at this hour.
08-10-17 13 :42 :08 – PHONE! The embassy. Someone found my passport and brought it to the police. How amazing. No more bureaucracy for me! Forgive me if I’m a bit naive but I can’t help it. So, anyway, where’s my passport, huh? The intelligent thing to do would have been to say to the girl at the phone to wait for me and I’ll go directly to the embassy to get the information. But you know, I’m stupid sometimes. So I ask her. Maybe I forgot that I was in a restaurant in a basement right in the middle of Tokyo, but the line was really crappy. And I don’t hear half the information the girl is giving me in French/English/Japanese. I try to go up one floor. The line is better, but too much noise from Tokyo. Try to go higher while I write the information. When I’m nearing the third floor she asks me if I have an e-mail. Would be easier of course than noting all that on a scrap of paper. HAHA! So I start: “A”, “C”, “I”, “D”, “E”. Then come the underbar « _ ». Yeah, try to explain what is an under bar (_) to someone who doesn’t understand neither English nor French well on a half shitty phone line that threaten to cut every second from now. Just forget it. Impossible. Then I just tell myself if can get the phone number right I’ll just call and ask for the whereabouts of the station. SO make the girl repeat at least five times to make sure the phone number is right. Excellent. I will be able to handle myself from there.
08-10-19 10 :13 :18 – I don’t know exactly why I didn’t call sooner, but I didn’t. Sunday morning, just spent the night clubbing and went to sleep in a capsule hotel.
Just need to make a quicky about capsules hotels. Those things are amazing. You enter the first floor, rent a room from a machine. A guy gives you a key to you can store your shoes, give him back the key, he gives you a new one. You go to the second floor. Lockers. You put your clothes in, and inside you’ll find a bathrobe and a towel. There are showers there and a laundry. On the third floor is a huge salon with 3 huge televisions. 7th floor are our cabins. Actually 1 meter width, 1meter height and less than 2 meters long. Not too bad. You have a sheet, can watch TV, listen to radio, and have you own alarm clock. ON the TV you can see animation, sports, news and pornography. Actually the worst pornography I ever saw. If the pornography was that bad in North America no doubt we would like animation more. In the morning you wake up, go to the bath room. There is individuals’ toothbrush, individuals’ razor. 3 different perfumes. It’s really not that bad. In the morning you have free coffee available on the first floor. I don’t have pics was too drunk to even think about taking some.
Anyway, Sunday morning, I call the station where is supposed to be my officially lost passport. The first thing I hear is a “moshi-moshi”. This is fairly strange for an official government office. I hang up and double check the phone number the second time I try. Japanese phone numbers can be fairly longs so it’s easy to make mistakes. Again, same girl, same “moshi-moshi”. Ok. I try to ask her about a lost passport. Silence and then moshi-moshi. Hang up. I go to the reception of the hotel and try to ask to the guy there if he knows the place I noted on my scrap of paper. Never heard of. His coworkers say the same. Holy fuck!!! Guess I’ll have to go to the embassy.
08-10-22 16 :30 :12 – Entering the embassy. Took me almost 4 hours to find it. In facts, the building is easy to find, but the actual embassy entrance is not. Without any indication in French or English and without finding any katakana saying Canada, I walked past it almost 5 times. Actual walked around the building 4 times. And except for the suspicious looks of the guards watching me, no reaction at all. The entrance is in fact on the fourth floor of a hotel, and you have to go all the way around outside to find an escalator. A pain really. SO I enter. The reception has a superb sign all chromed saying English/Français. Cool! Going to the reception, and telling to the woman there that I lost a passport and I’m here to get the information to get it back. I think she lost me after I said “Bonjour!” She tells me to wait and she goes fetch a Japanese woman that understand French better than her. Ok to me. She could actually really talk it well, but not understand. Took me about 5 times to make her understand that I wasn’t there to report a lost passport but to actually get the information to fetch it back. She then says to me to go to the third floor. Down to the third floor. The passport and urgency office. Which is supposed to be closed at this hour is actually closed. Yeah! But there’s a guy waiting there, so I take a sit. Not long after, a woman comes to me and asks me in English if I’m here for a passport. Yeah... more or less. I ask her if she speaks French. Her fingers tell me « Just a little bit. » Well, congratulation miss you just found a good excuse to practice cause there’s no way I’m gonna speak English in an official government building where I should be able to get services in French according to the Canadian law. 30 minutes later she understands. Then with a suspicious look, ask me if I have some ID. I get out my passport copy, my sun card, my 2 hospitals cards, my Gundam’s mecha driver card, my library card and the scrap of paper with my host family information on it. Am I tired of all this? Hell yes I am! She just takes my passport copy and tells me to wait a moment. She comes back with a paper holding all the information I need, including which subway line I should take and where to disembark and which exit to take. Cool. Then I realise that the school is just near it. Holy cow in heaven!?! Why me? She then tells me that I just go there, show them this case file number and it’s gonna be quick. Cool! Thank you very much miss.
08-10-23 15 :08 :20 – Entering the Keishicyo Isitsubutsu Center (Yup! I had a scrap of paper near me to write this one down on the computer.) I walked from school. To come in the neighbour where this police station is took me only 20 minutes. But to actually find the building took me near two hours. Did I ever tell that I hate Japanese maps? Well, I fucking hate Japanese maps! I found it after asking to ten different people who each single ones of them pointed a different direction to me. I have a really huge thank you that goes to the woman of the pharmacy who actually took 2 minutes of her time on the job to walk me to the building. DOMO ARIGATO GOZAIMASU!!! SO enter the station, which is in fact the lost and found objects office of Tokyo. GO to the reception. I hand over the paper with the file number on it and tell the guy it is a passport. He then hand me a formulary to fill. What the!!!! Name, address, phone number. Anything you want I don’t care just gives me back my passport. Give him back is piece of paper. Then tell me to wait. He comes back later with the passport in his hands. JOY!!! I reach to get it, and he step back asking me the name on the passport, date of birth, passport serial number. WHAT!?! Give him the information. Just hand over my passport you piece of sh*&!!! He gives me back my passport and I get the hell out of there.
So that’s it. Now I have officially retrieved my officially lost passport. I can say it was a good day. I don’t have pics of course, no one want to see office buildings pictures. But I do stumble on one thing while in the subway. Since you will only see that kind of decoration in a subway in Japan I thought I should take picture. I really like that.
Cya.
2 comments:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh god, I'm sorry, but I couldnt and still cant stop laughing, really, I'm sorry, but its too damn funny.
I really like your style, it makes me crack every time, lol.
Well, getting a bit more serious, congratulations on getting past that ordeal and managing to get your passport back!!!! And I think you should present a complain, once you are back in Canada, about the lack of french speaking persons in the embassy. Unbelivable. As I understand it, french is as much the official language as english. Oh well, guess goverment offices are the same worldwide, a bunch of fuckheads, lol.
I've been meaning to ask you, you are attending an institute, right? Which one?
Also, if you dont mind, what are yoiu avarege expensess a day? a week? When you reach the month of being there, could you say the average a month? How much does it cost to be living with a family?
If you dont want to answer, its cool, its just research for when I decide to go to Japan and do what you are doing, some time in the future XD.
Thanks!
You are one lucky guy!!! ^_^ But I agree with you, bureaucracy... it can make the simplest damn thing in the world so freaking difficult.
But at least in Japan, people will return your passport if you lose it :) And I'll second Shinka's question, I'm also interested in how much it costs to live in Japan for future visiting purposes.
Post a Comment