![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Going to a special hell
Mar. 17th, 2008 02:59 pmAs I will be returning to England on Sunday I had to go to the immigration office in Shinagawa to get a re-entry permit. Japan likes to have its' "aliens" under control which means having to have an ID card, and to cough-up everytime you leave the country so you can get back in again. I also noticed today that you can pre-register your bio-metric data before returning, so you don't have to do all the gubbins at the airport with jetlag.
I dislike having to give random people my fingerprints and photo. I recall having to do this the last time I went to the US, after being given a stern look from the immigration dude and told I had "overstayed my welcome", which is surely pretty hard to do when you're not in the country. I know it's the whole "terrorism blah blah blah" stuff, but I don't really want to give it to them. They all think I'm some sort of criminal. Everytime I go near a plane a deluge of uniforms descends on me, so I clearly look funny. Must be the expression of existential despair on my face. I might have to take the Voltaire option and wear designer suits every time I travel.
The only up side of having to queue in lines with the other aliens was that my permit was processed 3 minutes before lunchtime, when the whole office closes for an hour while you sit around like a large bump on a brown log. Yatta! I thought, bouncing off past the queue for new visas, knowing that that will be me in another 7 months. Queuing up there reminded me of the afterlife waiting-room in "Beetlejuice". Now there's a film to bring back from England with me.
More later, after I've hoovered.
I dislike having to give random people my fingerprints and photo. I recall having to do this the last time I went to the US, after being given a stern look from the immigration dude and told I had "overstayed my welcome", which is surely pretty hard to do when you're not in the country. I know it's the whole "terrorism blah blah blah" stuff, but I don't really want to give it to them. They all think I'm some sort of criminal. Everytime I go near a plane a deluge of uniforms descends on me, so I clearly look funny. Must be the expression of existential despair on my face. I might have to take the Voltaire option and wear designer suits every time I travel.
The only up side of having to queue in lines with the other aliens was that my permit was processed 3 minutes before lunchtime, when the whole office closes for an hour while you sit around like a large bump on a brown log. Yatta! I thought, bouncing off past the queue for new visas, knowing that that will be me in another 7 months. Queuing up there reminded me of the afterlife waiting-room in "Beetlejuice". Now there's a film to bring back from England with me.
More later, after I've hoovered.