I'm an Alien...It's Official!

I had yesterday off work to go and sort out all my visa's etc....extremely long winded process (most japanese things are), which meant driving across Niigata many times. Luckily, we are pretty well looked after here, my company employs a relocation company to take care of most of our whims, who sort out everything from our flats, our bills to helping us out if we get stuck in any situation that we get stuck in (i.e reversing into other peoples cars etc...). So yesterday involved driving to Niigata airport to get my alien registration (surprisingly i didnt turn green and have a cone shaped head afterwards...sorry...) this means i can now leave japan and come back without having to get another 3 month tourist visa, then i had to go to the city hall to fill in many many forms (japanese love forms), then to a Hanko shop. A Hanko is like a personal stamp that you use instead of a signature. Japanese dont have signatures, they have their little personal seal stamps that they use instead, and i have to have one for a few official type things. it had to be in english unfortunately, but i am getting a japanese character one for work. then back to city office to get my Hanko registered, you cant simply have a hanko, it has to be logged officially by the state. more forms, then went to open up a japanese bank account (all ATM's in japanese!). So now i am officially an alien resident in japan...which is a bit of a relief as i only had 2 weeks left on my visitors visa and was getting a bit close to the wire! this also means that i can get into japan as a resident, and dont have to queue up at immigration with the rest of the common foreign people. In the afternoon, I went to buy a car....more on that later...