The Japan Visa Run

Well I did the Japan visa run this past Thursday & Friday, and I actually made it back with everything I needed, didn't really get lost on the way, and didn't lose anything valuable. Maybe optimism IS the way to go.

I wasn't feeling too optimistic when I boarded an overheated bus early Thursday morning which I hoped was bound for Incheon airport. Of the four teachers at SLP who'll be doing the visa run, I was the first to go, so I had only the reticent Jim and a packet of documents/instructions to guide me from my little corner of Bucheon all the way over to the Korean embassy, excuse me, consulate in Osaka. The SLP 'guide to the visa run' seemed to tell me everything I needed, and Jim was full of his usual soft-spoken and world-weary advice on the day before I left (example: "don't get in the taxis unless you absolutely have to. The first thing Japanese taxi drivers do is lock you in and put 5,000 yen up on the meter (that's about 45 US greenbacks)." <--actually that was good advice, I didn't get into a taxi in Japan but from what I could tell by observing others, what Jim said was true), so I had some reason to feel like I might pull it off Thursday morning when I hopped on the old 302.

But I had a feeling something would go terribly wrong, and I'd wind up in Singapore or something and have to pay for a ticket back. But nothing like that happened. The 302 dropped me off at Incheon just as planned, I got on the right plane, and when I got to Osaka it was reasonably easy for an English speaking gaijin (I think that's the right word) to navigate around.

All of the Japanese people I met/asked for help were very kind and knowledgable, which is a good combination, and with their assistance and the aid of a couple of maps I found the train which took me downtown, and the Korean consulate, without a problem.

Finding the hotel was a bit tougher, you see, a lot of the part of Osaka where I stayed is criss-crossed with these narrow one-way 'streets' (actually they're more like alleys). There are a few large thoroughfares but these little one way backroads dominate the landscape...I didn't realize this going in, and based on the brochure the SLP people gave me I was sure the hotel would be on a large city street...it wasn't, and so I got a bit confused and even briefly lost. But I eventually got there and everything was ok, and after I got settled in I set out to explore.

Unfortunately it was raining, which made night-time walking a bit of a hassle, and I of course didn't know a soul in the city, so I didn't stay out late. I did have dinner at this little cafe and was served some sort of spicy meatball dish with mustard on the side which was really good...I don't know if it was worth 900 yen, but it was good.

The next morning the sky had cleared and I wasn't due at the embassy until 1:30, so I set out pretty early with big plans explore the city. I saw a lot...I guess, though I didn't see what I wanted to...what I mean is that I meandered up and down these aforementioned alley-streets for hours, without really taking much in even though I passed by a lot. There was just so much, and I didn't have much time. The few sights that I did set out for, the Sony building and the Art Museum, well, I got mixed results. The Sony building was this white, futuristic, seemingly-windowless building that was cool enough to look at, I guess. The art museum I know I got close to, but I couldn't find an entrance, and so that was a bust. I saw the 'Namba Walk' which is this enormous underground shopping mall that seemed to stretch for miles...but I wasn't really interested in shopping for clothes and everything was so damn expensive, anyway.

I don't really know how to effectively communicate all the shit I saw, so as I did with an earlier post, I'll just go through some of the notes I took down in my nerd-notebook I carry around with me.

"8 minute walk" - the hotel brochure said the hotel was this far from the nearest subway station. I just thought it was representative of a different mindset out here...

'Smoking areas/vending machines' - smoking's as big in Japan as it is in Korea, maybe bigger.

'Street walking on left' - in Japan they drive on the wrong side of the road, just like the Brits, and as a consequence they tend to walk on the wrong side, too. I noticed while walking that I kept running into crowds of people on the right side of the sidewalks, and realized why. When I shifted to the other side things went a lot more smoothly...

'2x the cost' - shit is fucking expensive in Japan. The aforementioned plate of meatballs, which was far from filling, cost 8 or 9 bucks, and later that night when I ordered room service (score!) to fill my fat ass up, it was another 12. Oh, and the food sucked, of course...

'ALL the women are gorgeous and whores' - probably the best part about walking down the street in Osaka was the eye candy. I think maybe b/c I was hanging out in a rich section that I had access to more high class scenery than, say, on a farm in Hokkaido or whatever...or maybe Japanese women are just all beautiful. I only saw one fatty, and dare I say it? I woulda hit that. And to top it off, they all where short skirts and low cut blouses in the middle of fucking winter. You see that in Korea sometimes, but everyone in Osaka was wearing that sort of outfit.

'completely Wester - uber-Western' - I didn't feel like I was in the 'East' at all...I mean it felt just like New York or Chicago, only the people looked a little different and the architecture was different. I don't know if that's a revelation for you, dear reader, but Japan is definitely part of the West...or at least downtown Osaka is.

'ABC stores sell shoes' - I kept seeing these signs for 'ABC Shop' and of course if you're from where I'm from you know what that meant to me...actually they sell shoes. Not that liquor was that hard to find, if you wanted it.

'Bon Jovi look' - apparently the hip look for Japanese teens is to channel Bon Jovi circa 1985 with the shaggy red hair. I musta seen hundreds of these guys...things went from funny to pathetic pretty quickly.

'people still stare but there are no little girls saying "hi!"' - when I walk down the street in Korea I'm quite the spectacle...it was basically the same thing in Osaka, but people only looked, they didn't speak. Of course I wasn't there very long, maybe if I'da stayed longer I would've heard those little 'hi!s' that I get here all the time.

'McDonald's everywhere' - seriously, everywhere. I also saw a coupla KFCs.

Oh yeah, one more thing. On the second day, after I'd picked up my visa and finalized all the paperwork to make me legal in Korea for a year, as I stepped outside the consulate the wind picked up. I started down the stairs that lead back to the street, and as I was descending the giant Korean flag in front of the building got caught in the wind and was blown over towards me. Before I could do anything about it, the flag had wrapped itself around my head, and I had a humiliating moment or two as I un-furled myself from it. Dare I say it? Another of God's little jokes.

For good or ill, it's official: I'm caught up in Korea for a year. More soon, I hope.