Late last night I checked the weather report for today, and brought in all the laundry just before bed. I’m glad I did – there was some serious gale force winds in the middle of the night that woke me up, and heavy rain when I got up in the morning.
I got an early start this morning, sticking to my regular morning routine despite the fact that I didn’t have to go to work. Instead I showered, had breakfast, put away the bedding, studied kanji, and I waited as long as I could before I left for Akashi.
Today my big adventure was to go to the city tax office and pay my taxes. Luckily, I can pay there and it has me covered all the way to the federal government. The taxes work pretty much the same here as they do in America – your employer withholds, and if there is any big discrepancy you pay it or receive it as a refund. The deadline here is on March 15th, and so I have just a week or so left to get it done.
I went to Akashi, taking advantage of a short break in the rain. When I got there I went to the city tax office, and they looked at me like I was from another planet and sent me 20 minutes down the road to the City Citizen’s Tax Payment Office, which I guess is the correct place to go. There were lots more people there, so I knew I was in the right place this time.
They had lots of people working, and they were really friendly and helpful (as long as you spoke Japanese). They shuttled me upstairs where they had about 35 laptop computers running a program that fills out the forms for you. They had people around the computers to guide you through the process, which turned out to be very good news for me. A lady started helping me, but about two steps in she left and a guy took over. I looked at the guy and did a double take – it was one of my ex-students from Takasago Minami. I was really surprised. He was one of my first students back in 2003. He helped me through the whole procedure and really saved me lots of time. See, it pays to be a teacher sometimes.
My taxes are really quite simple, despite the fact that I am a foreigner. I did have to fill out a special sheet to keep the office updated on my status. Nobody checked the information, however, so I think it’s just a paper trail to know where I am.
I wrapped everything up in under 30 minutes, and then walked back to the station and came back home. In the afternoon the rain and wind were really blowing, and I lost Troy, my trusty portable umbrella. The winds just gusted and bent one of the wires backwards. I’ve carried that one around a long time, but these winds were just too much for the little guy.
Today I wrapped up the cleaning of the bedroom, and now it’s just detail work that is left to do. I’ve got a couple piles of papers and a bag or two that I need to find a home for in there somewhere. Hmm…
Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be nicer (although still windy). My adventure tomorrow is to take a shot at getting a driver’s license. The first time I lost out to a paperwork technicality, but I think I’ve got that one covered now. I still need to pass the driving test, a written test, and an eye test. All of them will be tricky, and I’m told that I should expect to fail the driving test 3-4 times before I pass. So, I’m already feeling depressed about it in advance.
We’ll see how it goes…
