Green Carded

After 2 hours at the embassy this morning, we have finally completed Hiromi's visa application and she has been accepted. Since the police records are sealed and can only be opened by embassy staff, I was a little bit anxious to confirm that she was indeed not the Big Boss of the Yamaguchi Yakuza of Osaka. While the process was long and frustrating, I'm sure that it was probably much easier than if you had to apply in the U.S. Think about it, when you apply in the U.S., you have a bunch of miserable government paper pushers that do that job day in and day out and could care less about courtesy. In Japan, the folks that do the initial screening are local Japanese that probably think it's pretty cool to be working in the U.S. embassy. They are friendly and courteous. When you finally talk to a consular official, you are probably talking to a guy that is hoping to one day become the US ambassador to Japan or move up in the state department over time. He's got a post overseas and six Japanese girlfriends, life is good. Even though the process today took two hours, it was relatively painless. We celebrated by having a nice brunch after we finished at 10:30a.