Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Will they or won't they...

For every step forward there's a step back.


Last Friday Kris and I drove up to San Francisco to finally get our visas. We had a delay when they turned us down the first time for lack of documentation. Since Interac does not provide Certificates of Eligibility for spouses, we needed an extra document to be shipped from Interac Japan defining my contract with them to prove I could financially support the two of us.

However, when we went to apply for our visas the staff at the Japanese Embassy informed us that there was 3 additional documents we would also need. I have no idea why they didn't tell us about them before... heck, maybe they didn't even know we needed them. As I launched into a full anxiety attack Kris tried to pry more information from the unhelpful staff. We finally managed to get an idea of the three additional pieces we needed: registration information for Interac, website print out stating what kind of work Interac does (what??) and a letter from them stating they are simply aware that Kris will be accompanying me.

The next bit of bad news is that all these documents need to be original forms sent from Japan (except the website print out). Since we leave a week from tomorrow, and visa processing takes 5 days, AND it was already the weekend in Japan, this meant we have basically no time to get these forms shipped from Japan to us then bring them back to San Francisco.

I frantically emailed Japan, but due to the time difference I wasn't able to hear back from them until this morning (Monday). They told me they could send the registration information but, due to the legal nature of these documents, they would have to ship them directly to the consulate. When I called the consulate to find out where they should be sent to, I was informed that they would not accept any documents mailed directly to them. WHAT?!! They are literally making our situation impossible!

I have begun to resign myself to the fact that we may never be able to make this work. All our plans and efforts may be for nothing. We have no home, we've sold most our possessions, and we've spent non-refundable thousands on tickets. In a last-ditch effort I called the Interac office in the US and begged for help. In a (maybe) stroke of luck I was able to contact someone between work meetings that could help. He let me know that in 15 years of being in this business and getting visas for singles and couples he has NEVER heard of this issue before. We sure do have amazing luck.

Anyways, my contact (savior?) is going to try to get someone to call the consulate directly and work this problem out. For now, all we can do is wait and hope that things will be ok. By tomorrow night I should have more information, good or bad.

I hope its good.

K+K

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