Not so fast, sonny

Just when you thought it was safe to go to the Immigration Office and get your visa changed…
On Wednesday I get the official bit of paper from the immigration lawyer giving me permission to stay for three years. Now it’s just a simple procedure to go to Immigration and get the stamp in the passport. But the guy says I should ring them just to be sure.
So on Thursday I ring the guy to ask what time they open on Friday morning. I want to be there nice and early to get this over and done with.
But guess what… now he wants ANOTHER bit of paper from ANOTHER translation company, despite having been supplied with no less than five different official contracts and letters of recommendation already. Cue frantic phone call to immigration lawyer in Tokyo. Just to add to the tension and excitement, my mobile phone credit runs out right in the middle of the protracted shenanigans, necessitating a trip up the road to the local phone box, only to find that it doesn’t work and I have to go to the one further away up by the post office.
Luckily the Tokyo lawyer manages to sort it all out by offering to write the Immigration Office yet another letter explaining how they’re too stupid to understand their own procedures (or words to that effect). This duly arrives by express post over the weekend and Eleni and I are off to Hiroshima on the bullet train tomorrow to Get Legal (him) and Find Some Really Big Department Stores (her).
But I guess I’d better not count my chickens quite yet. Who knows what might happen next.