Japan, driving me crazy?

SINCE I'm going to Okinawa next week, I needed to get a Japanese driver's license. The hotel where I'm going is 2 1/2 hours away from the airport, by car! There is no shuttle to get to the hotel from the airport, of course there's public transportation, but it's only 1 bus which goes each way once a day. This meant I had to get a Japanese driver's license and fast.

A quick Google search will pull up many pages of different people explaining different methods and required papers. For Canadians (and some other places accepted by the Japanese driving bureau as acceptable) the requirements as of 2009 are: Canadian driver's license, translation into Japanese (by a certified office) of the license, Canadian passport, Japanese Alien card and proof of residency in Canada for at least 3 months after you got your license. And of course the license fee.

For the whole of Kanagawa province, which is about 1/8th the size of Japan, there is only one office which does this. The admissions office is also only open from 8:30am to 9:00am and from 1:00pm to 1:30pm. There is also a limit of 13 people who can do it in one session. This is a pretty short time for any public office I've ever seen, and it might just be the world record.

The office only accepts applications to do the paperwork for those two 30 minute periods since there are only 2 staff and every country has different requirements. So I grabbed all the things I could think of, airplane ticket to Japan, Red Cross certification in Canada, Canadian passport, Canadian driver's license, the translation, a letter I used for my mortgage from my employer stating hours, date I started and salary, the Alien card, and I took it all there. It took me about 1h45 on the train to get to the station.

I got off the train and realized that the bus stop had so many people waiting I would never make it on time on the bus. So I walked/ran for 15 minutes and got to the office just at 1:15pm.

When you get there you have to go to the window, there the two officers review your papers and see if you have the paperwork properly done to their satisfaction. After some questioning and talking between them they finally gave me a number on a big blue card. I was in! Whoo! No 7, No 8 was the last person to make it on time before they closed.

At 1:30pm they closed the office, leaving everyone sitting outside wondering what would happen next. I talked with another guy who was there doing the same thing, he was Australian. We chatted and compared different papers for a while.

At 2:30 they reopened their window and started calling people in. However not everyone was called by number in order. As I watched other people go to the window, they sent them in different directions, seemingly for different papers.

They finally called me to the window, they took my no 7. I was told to go around the corner and get 4 small pictures taken. I went to the back of the building and got the pictures taken, it cost 600yen. Then I came back with the pictures, handed one in and waited some more. They called me back and gave me a pile of forms, one big one with 3 pages and my alien card. I was asked to sign a waiver saying that I only wanted my car license for now and that if I wanted my motorcycle license I'd have to go through the process again.

I was then told to go to the building next door. I went and in the back of the building I paid 4500yen for 4 stamps. They stuck two of the smaller ones on the 3 paper form and also handed me two larger ones loose. I then had to go upstairs to a machine, press some buttons, enter two 4 digit codes, get a paper with a barcode and PINs on it, fill out some information on the big paper, and hand it all in back at the first building.

I handed in the forms and again waited. They called me back a while later, this time I went into the office and did a quick eye exam, there is a large sheet with many circles on it. The circles have holes on one side, pointing either up, down, left or right, you have to answer where the hole is. Then they flash a set of lights on the left of the sheet and you have to tell them which colours were up and down. The whole thing takes about 30 seconds, very efficient this part.

Then they sent me with a form and my barcode back to the first building to a different part of the first floor. I had to hand in the form, scan my barcode, get my picture taken (again?) get another form and go back to them with it and hand it in.

After handing it in and waiting some more, they made me stick my big stamps on a blue cardboard, sign a waiver saying I got all my documents back, and ushered me out. I had a big red no 12 stamped on my card. I had to fill out some more information on the card and go wait at a few rows down at a new window.

Finally after some more waiting, they called my number, it turns out they're group numbers and you have to wait until the everyone in the group is finished whatever they're doing. So I waited in line with 50 other people in group 12, went up, gave my blue card with stamps and got my license!

But it's not really done yet. I then had to go to a machine near the front door, wait in line, put my license on the pad, take it off when it was done reading it, enter my security codes and validate my information.

And then I was done! Whoo! The only drawback was that I had just renewed my license in Canada in December 2008, So they thought I'd only been driving for 11 months. They don't have licenses which expire and need to be renewed in Japan, so unless I go back and provide them with a driver's abstract showing that I've had a license for longer than that, I'm considered a "new driver". But I don't care, I have my license, I can now drive the rental car! To Okinawa I go!