I am in uncharted waters. My passport is out of my hands and I am in a foreign country. Will I ever see it again? Actually, I have relinquished my passport many times to get visas. But in all those cases, I was in the US. My passport expires in just a little over 6 months. It is recommended that you have a passport valid for at least 6 months whenever you enter another country. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure why, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what is recommended. Also, my visa expires in 6 months. I figured it was better to get a new passport before I get a new visa. When is it a good time to give up your passport? Right before holidays of course!<\/p>\n
In Japan, they strongly urge you to renew by mail. I had to mail my passport with a self-addressed trackable mailer inside, my applications, my passport, my pictures, and a money order. A money order?!? Apparently my US credit is not acceptable. All passports are printed in the US, so I have to wait for the new passport to come back from the US. They say it takes 3 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 4 weeks. So \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 if I look at that, will I have my passport in time for Christmas? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. However, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going back to the States this Christmas. For the first time. Ever. However, I hope I get the passport before Christmas just in case, and especially before the New Year. The week AFTER Christmas is a holiday in Japan and I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mind taking a few days then to travel. However, everyone in Japan is off, so travel is a nightmare.<\/p>\n
I had to go to the Post Office to get a money order in USD. You can imagine how easy that is. The first Post Office I went to at lunch didn’t have the capability to do money orders. If looks could kill I would not be available to type this blog entry. I left work early (actually on-time but it felt early) to go to a more central post office that was capable of money orders. I had to fill out a block form like you do for standardized tests. Of course, I wrote my name as JONATHAN FISH. Another place on the form said I had to write as it is written on my official documents so I wrote JONATHAN NEAL FISH. Nope. Bad, bad, bad. I had to update the upper name to include the middle name. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure why, but I had to. Then, after much hemming and hawing, I was instructed that I had to write my name FISH, JONATHAN NEAL. Actually the comma is probably controversial I added that myself. Of course, this was after I completely filled out the form including the to address and the from address. I got a new form and started all over. I was a little grumpy about it. <\/p>\n
The exchange rate I got was surprisingly good for these days \u00e2\u20ac\u201c just a little over 100 yen per dollar. Then they hit me with a 2000 yen service charge (that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about $20). After all the processing of everything I had written, I got the money order. None of the stuff that I had filled in for sender \/ receiver got printed on the money order and it had to be hand written on the money order instead. WHY DID I JUST DO THAT ON THE TEST FORM? Of course, I was super diligent to get it right.<\/p>\n
After 40 minutes I had my money order in the passport pack and it was on its way. Now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll fret like crazy and hope that I included everything that was required, that everything was filled out properly, and that nothing gets lost. In the meantime, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll enjoy Japan!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am in uncharted waters. My passport is out of my hands and I am in a foreign country. Will I ever see it again? Actually, I have relinquished my passport many times to get visas. But in all those cases, I was in the US. My passport expires in just a little over 6 … <\/p>\n