KagenamiQ (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jttr) wrote,@ 2008-03-10 14:42:00 |
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Third-Floor Windows All Steamed Up?
Just before heading back to the U.S. for what we thought would be a quick trip to pick up our dog Koji and cat Sheba (who were in a kennel the last five months to satisfy import regulations) and bring them to Japan,avalonjones and I took a quick detour to Asakusabashi for the annual February Gojyo x Hakkai & Kenren x Tenpou event, this year called 58KaraT R (the "R" is for Reload, Return, Reunion), that filled the third floor of the Kyouwa Kaikan.
Through this third-floor door, wonders awaited...
There were 50 circles in all plus quite a few public attendees, with doujinshi dealin' and scramblin' for sketches before noon, the event's special anthology book being unveiled for sale at 12:00, and then cosplay fun until the event's 3pm closing.
The cosplay started with a group photo-op. There were so many of us shooting photos, there wasn't enough room for everyone to get a shot from the front so the organizers had us form a line, and then moved us about a dozen at a time in front of the cosplay group, gave us the count of 10 to get our shots (plenty of time for two or three photos), and then moved us along so the folks in line behind us could get their shots. I'd never seen that done before, but it was a great idea and moved things right along.
After the group shot, a few of the cosplayers went back to their doujinshi tables, but the rest spread around the cosplay area in a neat jam-session of poses. There were a slew of sharp costumes--and although this was the first time in three years that there wasn't a Zakuro (ohh welllll...), this year saw the debut of the bestest Seiten Taisei ever!
I guess it's the law of averages that if you have a super-great time one day, you'll have to scrape bottom on another. Just thinking back on 58KaraT R, it still seems ingraspably surreal thatavalonjones and I were together then but not now.
We put everything we had into this trip to bring the animals over, so that our little family could all be together here in Japan. The airlines limit pets to one per person, so we both had to go, to carry back one apiece. The paperwork was gruelling; every detail had to be perfect, and had to be approved in person at the state's branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But we got it all done. And 16-year-old Koji and at-least-18-year-old Sheba endured the three-hour drive to the airport and 12-hour flight to Japan. At Narita we carried them off the plane in their soft-sided carriers, so happy that the journey was almost done; just enter through Immigration and take them to Animal Quarantine for their papers and IDs to be checked, and then at blessed last, home would be about a three-hour bus ride away, or a little longer by train if they wouldn't let us take animals on the bus...
At Immigration, with Koji in tow,avalonjones applied to enter on a tourist visa, as she had done twice before since last September. In a different line, Sheba and I went through Immigration with my re-entry permit, no problem, and waited for avalonjones and Koji on the other side of the barrier.
They never came through.
They had disappeared.
An Animal Quarantine official came to begin checking in Koji and Sheba, but couldn't start because although I had Koji's paperwork, there was no Koji. I gave him my partner's name and flight info, and he had me wait in the cavernous luggage pick-up area, where I gathered our bags on two carts. An hour passed. He returned to explain that Immigration information was "secret" so the Animal Quarantine department wouldn't be able to ask the Immigration department for details after all. After we waited a while longer, he asked for a description of her to see if he could at least spot where she was. Off he went again, but never came back.
I was sure the problem was Koji; someone coming in on a tourist visa wouldn't be allowed to have a pet dog with them, much less one they had no official papers for. So on through the second hour of waiting, I was beating myself up for not having thought to be carry both Koji and Sheba through Immigration. I tried to call my boss for advice, but my cell phone was dead; had forgotten to turn it back off to save the battery after using it as a back-up alarm clock to get up for the wee-hours drive to the airport. And there were no phones at all there, what with the luggage pick-up being in the security zone between the Immigration and Customs areas.
After three hours, a guard came and told meavalonjones would have to return to the U.S., and would be brought there to pick up her bags. I told him I had the papers for the dog she was carrying, if that would solve the problem; he said he would ask and went away.
In the fourth hour, a shellshockedavalonjones was escorted in by two guards. The problem, one explained, was that if someone is visiting Japan on a tourist visa, there's a limit of six months in a one-year period. For a stay longer than that, she would need a job here and a work visa. She has a job that's ready to start as soon as her work visa comes through; the work visa was applied for last month, and typically takes three to six weeks. Until then, though, she would have to go back to the U.S.
She gave me Koji. I gave her all the cash left (a whopping $360--almost enough to cover the 38,000-yen security fee they were charging her, yikes!), her bags, and my 99-year-old good-luck Billiken. She told me the hotel and room number where they'd be keeping her, under lock and guard, overnight before the next day's flight. Before she had known where she'd be, they had allowed her to make a phone call, and with my phone dead, she'd called the only other number she had, reaching our friend Evil Genius JO--who was at that moment tearing down the couple-hour-long route from Tochigi Prefecture on a mission of mercy with our friend Mighty M along, not knowing whereavalonjones would be that night but hoping to find me somewhere in nebulous Narita so he could learn her location, get her a chunk of money to ensure her short-term survival, and drive me and the poor passed-out pets back to Gunma.
It was a nightmarish time--and I'll leave the rest foravalonjones to tell, since she may be back online the day after tomorrow or so; she holed up with friends for nearly a week in snow-swamped Ohio, but her folks are flying her out to the West Coast for a visit until the work visa comes through.
And meanwhile, here in the house where we all should be, Sheba pushes her head next to my ear when I callavalonjones each day, and Koji cranes his head so hopefully at the sound of each passerby, and I just can't help being shaken by the sudden separation. Am grateful that nothing worse happened...and won't take having a good time, like at 58KaraT R, for granted again for at least a good long while!
Just before heading back to the U.S. for what we thought would be a quick trip to pick up our dog Koji and cat Sheba (who were in a kennel the last five months to satisfy import regulations) and bring them to Japan,
avalonjones and I took a quick detour to Asakusabashi for the annual February Gojyo x Hakkai & Kenren x Tenpou event, this year called 58KaraT R (the "R" is for Reload, Return, Reunion), that filled the third floor of the Kyouwa Kaikan.Through this third-floor door, wonders awaited...There were 50 circles in all plus quite a few public attendees, with doujinshi dealin' and scramblin' for sketches before noon, the event's special anthology book being unveiled for sale at 12:00, and then cosplay fun until the event's 3pm closing.
The cosplay started with a group photo-op. There were so many of us shooting photos, there wasn't enough room for everyone to get a shot from the front so the organizers had us form a line, and then moved us about a dozen at a time in front of the cosplay group, gave us the count of 10 to get our shots (plenty of time for two or three photos), and then moved us along so the folks in line behind us could get their shots. I'd never seen that done before, but it was a great idea and moved things right along.
After the group shot, a few of the cosplayers went back to their doujinshi tables, but the rest spread around the cosplay area in a neat jam-session of poses. There were a slew of sharp costumes--and although this was the first time in three years that there wasn't a Zakuro (ohh welllll...), this year saw the debut of the bestest Seiten Taisei ever!
I guess it's the law of averages that if you have a super-great time one day, you'll have to scrape bottom on another. Just thinking back on 58KaraT R, it still seems ingraspably surreal that
avalonjones and I were together then but not now.We put everything we had into this trip to bring the animals over, so that our little family could all be together here in Japan. The airlines limit pets to one per person, so we both had to go, to carry back one apiece. The paperwork was gruelling; every detail had to be perfect, and had to be approved in person at the state's branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But we got it all done. And 16-year-old Koji and at-least-18-year-old Sheba endured the three-hour drive to the airport and 12-hour flight to Japan. At Narita we carried them off the plane in their soft-sided carriers, so happy that the journey was almost done; just enter through Immigration and take them to Animal Quarantine for their papers and IDs to be checked, and then at blessed last, home would be about a three-hour bus ride away, or a little longer by train if they wouldn't let us take animals on the bus...
At Immigration, with Koji in tow,
avalonjones applied to enter on a tourist visa, as she had done twice before since last September. In a different line, Sheba and I went through Immigration with my re-entry permit, no problem, and waited for avalonjones and Koji on the other side of the barrier.They never came through.
They had disappeared.
An Animal Quarantine official came to begin checking in Koji and Sheba, but couldn't start because although I had Koji's paperwork, there was no Koji. I gave him my partner's name and flight info, and he had me wait in the cavernous luggage pick-up area, where I gathered our bags on two carts. An hour passed. He returned to explain that Immigration information was "secret" so the Animal Quarantine department wouldn't be able to ask the Immigration department for details after all. After we waited a while longer, he asked for a description of her to see if he could at least spot where she was. Off he went again, but never came back.
I was sure the problem was Koji; someone coming in on a tourist visa wouldn't be allowed to have a pet dog with them, much less one they had no official papers for. So on through the second hour of waiting, I was beating myself up for not having thought to be carry both Koji and Sheba through Immigration. I tried to call my boss for advice, but my cell phone was dead; had forgotten to turn it back off to save the battery after using it as a back-up alarm clock to get up for the wee-hours drive to the airport. And there were no phones at all there, what with the luggage pick-up being in the security zone between the Immigration and Customs areas.
After three hours, a guard came and told me
avalonjones would have to return to the U.S., and would be brought there to pick up her bags. I told him I had the papers for the dog she was carrying, if that would solve the problem; he said he would ask and went away.In the fourth hour, a shellshocked
avalonjones was escorted in by two guards. The problem, one explained, was that if someone is visiting Japan on a tourist visa, there's a limit of six months in a one-year period. For a stay longer than that, she would need a job here and a work visa. She has a job that's ready to start as soon as her work visa comes through; the work visa was applied for last month, and typically takes three to six weeks. Until then, though, she would have to go back to the U.S. She gave me Koji. I gave her all the cash left (a whopping $360--almost enough to cover the 38,000-yen security fee they were charging her, yikes!), her bags, and my 99-year-old good-luck Billiken. She told me the hotel and room number where they'd be keeping her, under lock and guard, overnight before the next day's flight. Before she had known where she'd be, they had allowed her to make a phone call, and with my phone dead, she'd called the only other number she had, reaching our friend Evil Genius JO--who was at that moment tearing down the couple-hour-long route from Tochigi Prefecture on a mission of mercy with our friend Mighty M along, not knowing where
avalonjones would be that night but hoping to find me somewhere in nebulous Narita so he could learn her location, get her a chunk of money to ensure her short-term survival, and drive me and the poor passed-out pets back to Gunma.It was a nightmarish time--and I'll leave the rest for
avalonjones to tell, since she may be back online the day after tomorrow or so; she holed up with friends for nearly a week in snow-swamped Ohio, but her folks are flying her out to the West Coast for a visit until the work visa comes through.And meanwhile, here in the house where we all should be, Sheba pushes her head next to my ear when I call
avalonjones each day, and Koji cranes his head so hopefully at the sound of each passerby, and I just can't help being shaken by the sudden separation. Am grateful that nothing worse happened...and won't take having a good time, like at 58KaraT R, for granted again for at least a good long while!
