I fought the law, and the law won...

I landed in a rainy Osaka. I had to ride a tram from the terminal to the customs depot where I made my first mistake in Japan. I was blissfully ignorant of the fact that a stay of six months would require a Visa; on the entry form I ought to have written two months. At the immigration station I was redirected away from the other students and into a holding area. No one spoke English. I tried to show my paperwork to the officers and had my whole bag searched through by a very diminutive Japanese lady. I was held in the room for half an hour while the Japanese tried to ascertain who I was. Finally, a customer service representative who spoke fluent English showed up and quickly found the JCMU representative who was waiting for me.

The grand solution to my problem was to cross out the “6” and replace it with a “2”. I rushed through customs to the JCMU group; who I found had not even made it through the kiosk to have our luggage shipped to Hikone. I ended up waiting another half hour until we got on the bus and made a three hour bus ride from Osaka to Hikone through the rain.