A Series of Unfortunate Events in Japan

A Series of Unfortunate Events in Japan

19^th July 2007

I have forsworn off any overseas trips while I am here in South Korea. The money I earn here will be used to fund my two year stay in the Philippines. The more money I save here, the more comfortable I am going to be in Phily. This - coupled with some debt I need to pay off - means things need to be tight here in South Korea.

So what the hell I am doing in Japan? Good question.

I was in South Korea under a work visa. The work visa was issued by my former employer - Kwak's Language Institute. My working visa was revoked when I finished my employment with Kwak's and I had to get a new visa under my new employer.

Now some stoopid immigration law means that I have to leave the country, get my new visa, and then come back into South Korea. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. My ol' mate Mimi had to undertake a similar trip when she was working in Taiwan.

Unlike Mimi though, I completely failed to get a new visa. Why? Well, that's a series of unfortunate events. If any one of the following things had panned out differently, then I would of got my visa.

Incompetence on the part of Korean Immigration/Kwak's Language Institute
Your usually given four weeks to get out of the country. I was given two. This was either due to incompetence on the part of Kwak's or Korean Immigration.

If I was given four weeks instead of two, then there wouldn't of been a problem.
Incompetence on the part of Canterbury University
I needed a copy of my university transcript from Canterbury University for my visa. Korean Immigration already had one from my first application, but they wanted another one. *shakes head in disbelief*. It was going to be a pain to organize from South Korea so I got my good ol' Mum to do it for me.

Canterbury University does these things all the times, so it shouldn't of been a problem. But, alas, my Mum happened to be connected to the person who had just started working there. My Mum stressed the urgency of the request, and the new worker assured her that the transcript would arrive in plenty of time.

It still has not arrived.

We had another couriered out and it arrived in South Korea when I was in Japan. This finally allowed my new employer to get the Magic Number I needed for my visa.

If I was had gotten my transcript on time then there wouldn't of been a problem.
A closed embassy
The embassy in Japan processes these requests all the time. There's almost a mini-industry set up over there as Korean teacher after Korean teacher does the visa-run. People almost always get it done in a couple of days.

When I finally got my magic number, I ran to the embassy and had my speech all prepared to get them to process my visa in one day, so that I would not have to spent the rest of the weekend (and more money) in Japan.

The Japanese and the Koreans don't get on for the most part, so I was going to say something like, "I really love Korea, but Japan is only so-so. I want to get back to Korea a.s.a.p. so that I can spend my money over there and not here. I also want to get back and educate the Korean children I teach, because they are the future of Korea and I think that's important."

Alas, the embassy had already closed for the day. Worse yet, it would also be closed for the weekend and for public holidays on Monday and Tuesday.

Bugger.

If the Korean embassy had been opened, then there wouldn't of been a problem.

And to make matters worse there was a typhoon between Japan and Korea and all flights were canceled, so I had to spend another day in Japan and burn up even more money that I'd prefer to spend in Phily.

Meh.

My new employer has been very good about all this. They paid for my flight over to Japan and the accommodation. They are so much better than Kwak's.

I am going to have to make a return trip to Japan in the near future and pay for the airfare and accommodation myself.

While this is all a bit annoying and a waste of money, I still get to go to Japan and add to my passport stamp collection, so it's not so bad.

And - of course - I had some fun times in Japan, which can be found here.

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