Prove it!

Even Japanese police stations have cute mascots! This large poster
was on the front of the station we visited yesterday.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, we're doing a van shuffle this month. It's been nearly eight years since we acquired a vehicle and I'd forgotten how tricky that is in Tokyo.

The main complication is parking permission. If you visit this city, it's pretty obvious that there isn't much spare space. You can't just park an extra vehicle on the footpath in front of your house, or on a driveway, or even on the road in front of your house. To regulate this space problem, the police and landlords have gotten involved. In order to get a new car we've had to: 

1. Get proof we have sufficient parking space, this from the owner of the parking space, i.e. our landlord who works through a downtown real estate agent. By the time David got the forms for this, filled them out, and mailed them to the real estate office, this took well over a week to get done.

Part of the parking application where David drew a nice map of our
carport and the road.

2. Fill out a police parking application, which included the stamped Proof of Parking certificate from the "owner".  It also included having to draw a map of the space, with measurements included.

3. Take to a specific police station, all the above we took to the station yesterday, it was a nice 20 minute ride (faster than train, bus, or car). They will come and check that we've been accurate in our measurements and we can collect the permission from them next Tuesday.

Front of the police station. Typically, there was more bike-parking
than car parking. Just two cars and about a dozen bikes.

4. Inspection Registration Office: All the above, plus some other papers from the former owner needs to be taken to the (a good hour drive from here). David's going to meet our colleague (current-soon-to-be-former owner of the car) at the Registration Office. As he's in Yokohama, it is quite a long journey for him, the office is south of us in the western half of Tokyo.

All paper, nothing online. This nation is such a paradox of technological and "ancient" ways.

What I'm not sure about is that I don't think we've had to prove that we are getting rid of the car that's currently parked in this space! I don't know how that works, maybe it was part of the parking application that David filled in?

We're also part of the process with our current car, though on the other side: David will have to make a second journey to the Inspection Registration Office to make the exchange of ownership legal there too.

All this kind of makes the exchange of money that will happen in both situations seem like a minor affair!

I'm very thankful for a husband who is pretty good at these bureaucratic things in Japanese.

Visiting Australia in Tokyo

Today was my first visit to the Australian Embassy in Japan (I've once visited the Australian Consulate in Sapporo, though). I must say it didn't feel really a welcoming place. There is a tonne of security, though I guess that it probably the case for any embassy — I'm not really familiar with embassies. We did visit the Japanese consulate in Brisbane. They didn't require our passports, but they did make us leave our phones outside the room!

The security guys at the Tokyo embassy didn't search me, but I felt like it was in an airport: passport presentation, bag search, and the x-ray-arch to walk through. Thankfully they didn't ask me to remove my shoes or belt and I didn't have to throw away my water bottles either!

Once past the large outside walls, we found a bleak courtyard surrounded on three sides by an office building of glass and concrete. It was not clear where we should go, we even had to squint a little to read the cryptic signs. What I wanted was a friendly Australian to meet, but there were no people. We made a wrong turn and ended up outside a darkened conference room called Acacia.

The only person we saw the whole time who wasn't behind glass was someone watering a few pot plants. He, thankfully, was friendly and pointed us to the right office, just inside the front gate (obviously they don't want the ordinary Australians coming anywhere near the nerve centre!), where we found a Japanese-looking lady behind thick glass.

My purpose was to get a new passport for our middle son, who was born ten years ago this year in Sapporo. Yes, he was born in Japan. That doesn't mean he's a Japanese citizen (as I'm sometimes asked), but it does mean that he cannot just take a birth certificate into one of these situations. He has to take his birth certificate (which is just a certified copy of the form my husband filled in at the time of his birth, notifying whomever that our son had been born!), plus an English translation of that, plus a Certificate of Citizenship by Descent.

In all, though, the "interview" took less than 20 minutes. Basically it was paper-pushing and a cross-checking exercise. Now we wait and see what the powers-that-decide in Canberra have any problems with our paperwork. In the meantime, they hold our son's passport in their possession. That always makes me feel nervous, what happens if we need it . . . but it felt less scary than the other option she proposed, and that was cancelling it altogether. The third alternative was that we keep the old un-cancelled passport, but that meant I needed to do another two-hour round trip to pick up the new one. So I went for the middle ground and asked them to keep the old passport and post us the new one.

So now we're home again, after our brush with overseas Australia bureaucracy. My son has enjoyed a rare day-off school with my full attention. We've travelled the trains, eaten lunch at McDonalds, and enjoyed each other. I taught him a bit more about navigating around Tokyo too. I told him what signs we needed to look for (like "Exit 2" or "Toei subway line") and he enjoyed that. I also gave him the map from the subway exit to the embassy and he got us there. I love that kind of hands-on learning. He can be a challenging person to get along with, but as I've found with all my kids, they're much nicer and easier to get along with one-on-one than they can be in a mob.

Are you Australian or Japanese residents? — the bureaucratic challenge

I was already nervous about speaking at chapel this afternoon, and now I've had a less than helpful (to my nerves) phone call. Centrelink* called — they were trying to ascertain whether we were still Australian residents or whether we've actually set up base in some other country and are just milking them of money. The technical definition of "resident" in this case is along the lines of whether we still have financial (and family) ties in Australia. The lady was polite, but I don't think me having the title of "missionary" was very helpful to her. She wanted to prove I wasn't eligible to receive any of their money, but she didn't manage in the end. And as usual, in conversations like this with bureaucracy or banks, I got nervous and tongue tied. 


I mean how do you explain our finances in a way that someone without a knowledge of mission organisations can understand? We work for an international organisation. People in Australia donate money towards our finances and these are managed in Australia and then sent through the system so that we're paid in Japanese yen. We also are employed in Japan. My husband works in a school that is located in Japan. We put tax returns in in both countries. We have bank accounts in both countries. However, we do have Australian citizenship. That means that to live and work in Japan, we have to have visas and passports, both of which need renewing. But sometimes we work in Australia, one year out of five. We own property in neither country (nor do we have a mortgage in either country). Seen through certain filters, this all could look pretty dodgy! And I certainly didn't help by sounding uncertain. I'd be a terrible witness in a court of law, I'm certain. I'd convict myself.


It really made me feel a little bit homeless. We aren't full residents of Japan, and an Australian bureaucrat wanting to prove that we aren't residents of Australia anymore . . . 


Thankfully I have full citizenship in heaven, I just don't have a departure date yet!


*I guess you call them Australia's social services – the ones who pay unemployment benefits, family benefits etc.

How do homeschooling mums do errands?

Warning: This is not a post for those who know that those with less than perfect children are definitely bad parents. It is not written by a bad parent, just one who has spirited, imperfect, self-centred children. I neglected to mention the behaviour of my children on yesterday's trip to the city hall. I have been accused of having low expectations of my children, but I like to think that I have realistic expectations. Nevertheless, no one could have accused me of much except having awful, rowdy, unyielding, disobedient kids yesterday! My Japanese friend kindly offered to help me (with the bureaucracy, not the kids) and so we went together, with my two youngest boys, 6 and 3. First problem - we arrived 10 minutes before opening and they complained there was no playground to use (as if it were a right)! The toilet issue was quickly solved by a dash inside and then we were directed to another building across the road - a temporary office. Inside the office four 'counsellors' were ready to assist with enquiries. Each equipped with two chairs for the enquirers. So, second problem - there were four of us, including children. He motioned for us adults to sit and promptly the two boys tried to sit on the same spare corner of my chair. I think I am thankful I am not a large person and at least had a corner-of-a-chair to offer, but you can imagine what happened next, can't you? Pushing and shoving...while I was trying to follow the official Japanese conversation happening on my behalf. I eventually had to drag the boys out of the room so that everyone else could get on with their business. Good news - the waiting area was lined with about a dozen chairs. But by this time they couldn't stand the sight of each other and kept shoving chairs at each other. Getting louder and louder...an official looking man eventually came and tried to intervene. This is always a problem when dealing with our kids as our youngest doesn't understand Japanese. Thankfully our oldest wasn't present. As it escalated I shoveled the boys outside the building (all the while, MY business is being dealt with by my friend and someone I've only just met) and thankfully it was all over soon after that and I could return to the privacy of my own home and rotten kids. I am so relieved that my friend is a good friend and doesn't mind helping. Also that Japanese are fairly lenient with young children (and foreigners). It was pretty embarrassing, though. But frankly, I wonder how homeschooling mums do all those things that other mums do when their kids are at school, especially those with multiple, multiple kids. I mean, do you load up all 6, 8 or 10 of your kids to go to the bank? I know you can go grocery shopping at night when they are in bed, but to renew your licence? I'm sure internet banking has been a boon for those people, but I'm wondering about other things, like birthday shopping...