Immigration and Errands

Today, I had a full list of things that I needed to do. The first and most important was to get my visa renewed. I took a day off of work today to get it finished too. I really didn’t want to, but I knew that it was in my best interest to get it done as soon as possible. I still get up at 5:30am to get ready for my school schedule, but it’s so hard to do that. I wake up, but then quickly fall back asleep. I would have had to go to school today by 9:30am because there was an opening ceremony. It was my last chance to see it for the fall semester because I missed it last year, when I first started working at the school and I won’t get a chance next year because I won’t be in Japan next year.

I got up around 9am though and then left the house by 10am. I arrived at the immigration office, or actually the ministry of justice building around 11am. The whole process of getting my visa renewed was really quick. It took only about 30 minutes to get my re-entry permit and my teaching visa renewed. There were a lot of people there, so I thought that I’d have to wait long, but it really wasn’t that bad.

After I took care of that, I had lunch at Yoshinoya since it was convenient for me as I was walking back to Ishikawacho station. Then I hopped on the train to Konandai station where I went to the bank to get some cash. I had been running low lately since I had inquired some costs that I didn’t expect for this month. I needed to get some new things for this semester and things that haven’t gotten for summer since it was now ending; I wanted to get that finished too.

I arrived at Hongodai soon thereafter and realized that the train schedules were off for some reason. It could have been the rain since it was pouring today. It was a bit unusual but since its typhoon season, it wouldn’t be too uncommon in the near future. I last heard that there was a huge typhoon about the size of Hurricane Katrina that’s headed for Japan, but mainly the southern part of Japan. But that could have brought all the rain with it up here to Tokyo.

I went to the Sakae ku ward office because I needed to update my Alien Registration card and then sign up for health insurance. The part that I found out was, I had to pay from when I entered to Japan till now. That means that I have to pay for insurance even though I didn’t even use it for a year. I didn’t think that was cool, but now I’m covered for about 70% of my medical costs, if I were to ever need it. Hopefully I won’t, but then that would be a waste of $500. I think that I get a free health check-up annually and since I didn’t use one last year, I wonder if I could get two this year. But I highly doubt that. Anyways, it’s only for emergencies anyways. So I was glad that I finally took care of all of this. I finished all this up around 1pm. I was making very good time today.

I then went shopping for a little bit. I needed to get some things for the up and coming event where I go to the base of Mt. Fuji again, which will actually be in two days. It will be for a manners lesson for the 11th grade students, but I will have an English class with the entire 11th grade at one time and it will all be done in English. That’s usual though since I’m a teacher, but the problem that I’m having with this, is that I’m doing it in front of my boss again, and she’s got some pretty high standards. I met them last time, but I think this time she set me up to fail. But let’s see how things turn out. I just got some new clothes for it and I finally bought a new wallet. I think I like it, but I haven’t used it yet, so I’m not sure whether it will be good or not.

I came back to get some indoor shoes, since I now use my old indoor shoes out doors. So I needed to get a new pair, I just got a cheap pair because I will only use it inside now. I think I might change around my shoes and even wear them at school, but I’m not sure what I will do yet. But at least I have another pair to be able to decide that at a later date.

I then bought dinner at the supermarket and then came home. I did a lot of cleaning around my apartment because I wanted to get rid of a lot of things. I finally put away all my visa application things that have been sitting all over the place for the past month or so. It’s not completely finished yet, but I think that it’s gotten better. I have been on a pretty tight schedule today to get everything finished and on time. The only thing that I missed was my bed time at 10pm. Since it’s 11pm now, I think I will get some sleep even though I don’t have class till much later, I want to make sure that I’m able to get up early enough for the next few days since I know I’m going to have to get up really early at the school trip to Gotemba and I’ll be very tired too. Good night.