Another trip to the Consulate

Unlike Ruben, I am *not* done packing. In fact, I had to make a trip to the Japanese Consulate this morning.

Today's trip included:

1. Submitting new photos for Jim, Cheryl, and Rick;
2. Showing them JP's & Kat's actual, physical drivers licenses; and
   
3. Changing each & every application to read "Saga-shi, Saga" instead of just "Saga" for the location of our hotel in Saga (near Osaka).
   

JP met me at the Consulate at 10am and came up with me. He didn't want to be without his Drivers License. He showed it to them, they made a photocopy, and gave it back to him.

I had Kat's drivers license because she left it with me after Saturday's rehearsal. She flew home that night using her old, expired passport as ID. (Her new, non-expired passport is, like all the rest of ours, at the Consulate.) They took her DL, made a photocopy, and gave it back to me. Later in the day, I went to a FedEx store and shipped it back to her, overnight. She'll have it by 10:30am tomorrow (Tuesday).

All 3 of us (JP, me, & the Consulate caseworker) inspected Rick's passport trying to find the stamp that showed he re-entered the US after his last international trip. We couldn't find it. We *did* however, find the stamp that showed he left Germany. The supervisor decided that that was good enough.

However, in Tess' passport, there was only one stamp & it wasn't clear if it was an entry or exit stamp, so the supervisor decided that she needed to come in person to the Consulate.

I phoned Tess to tell her that she was going to have to find time to come to downtown San Francisco (a 30 mile trip from her house - and probably 45 minutes of driving) sometime before Thursday morning. Fortunately, she was driving her husband in to work this morning & so was already *in* San Francisco!

She met me at the Consulate, we went upstairs together, and presented her to the caseworker. (He seemed surprised she was there, not 20 minutes after he told me he needed to see her!!) He asked for her drivers license, made a copy of it, then gave it back to her.

So, with that we are finished for now. I can go pick up our finished passports-with-visas on Thursday morning.

YAY!