I got up fairly early today to go out to Akashi and jump on the train with Kuniko. I had messaged her as she approached, figured out what train car she was on, and then jumped on and met up with her.
I thought I saw one of my students who had graduated one year ago, and she was looking at me kind of funny. She looked a lot different, but I mentioned it to Kuniko, and she said she recognized her from Takasago Minami.
That must have been a funny situation for the girl – she’s on the train, and then she sees Kuniko, and recognizes her. Then, a few stops later, she sees me get on the train and recognizes me. Then she sees me come up to Kuniko and put my arms around her – that must have been a pretty good shock. As she got off the train she said hello.
We got off in Umeda, and took the Midosuji line of the subway south – from there it was just a five minute walk to the American embassy. On the way we crossed several rivers, and the city hall of Osaka, which was pretty impressive on its own.
The reason for going to the embassy was to have a affadavit witnessed and sealed by the vice consul, which in turn would be used at the Japanese city office where I live.
We got to the embassy, and there was a line of people outside, mostly Japanese. There was a kind security guard organizing things, and even though he didn’t speak English (and he didn’t have to, because Kuniko was there) he was full of amusing little snippets of English that he had picked up on the job. At the each corner of the building were Japanese security guards, and the American flag was flying above the embassy. It reminded me of spy movies when all they have to do to escape is to get inside the embassy and ask for protection.
We had to walk through a metal detector, surrender our electronics, and exchange photo ID for visitor badges, and then finally we were allowed to go to the fourth floor. We waited there with people hoping for American visas, an American woman (with great Japanese skills) getting married to a Japanese man, and an angry looking young man who had lost his passport the day before he was to come home from his vacation.
The consul came out and had me raise my right hand, and as I stood under the pictures of George W., Dick Cheney, and Condi Rice I swore that the information was correct. It would have made a great picture if they hadn’t confiscated all my electronics.
From there we went back to the station. For lunch we went to a hamburger place that Kuniko had seen on TV. The place was very busy – there weren’t seats, you ordered and then took it away. We ordered and had to come back in one hour to get our food – that’s how popular it was. The burger I got was big – American sized – and it was delicious. There wasn’t as much a focus on meat as in America, but the other ingredients were a good match.
Next we took the train back to Akashi, and Kuniko led me through the shopping center in the middle of the train station. At the end of the building there was a branch office of the city office, with 4-5 ladies wearing aprons while they did office work. It was pretty slow when we walked in, but when we explained what we wanted they sprang into action. I’d say they definitely hadn’t had a marriage request from a foreigner yet, judging from the instruction manual that they broke out.
We produced all the paperwork that we had collected, and it appeared to all be in order. They kept calling the main office, and as we waited I could see shoppers walking by outside the door with shopping bags full of clothes.
Finally they said that we were finished, so we got up and left. We walked back through the shopping center on the way back to the train station.
It’s at this point that we were officially married, even though we carried no proof of the fact. They will have paper proof for us in a week or so, but we’re in the database as being married.
The whole reason to do this now is because we have more time during the summer to do all the paperwork. I knew that it would be weird to get married in a city office, and it was even stranger to get married in a city office that is part of a shopping center. The feeling was akin to walking into the lonely customer service desk on the top floor of a Sears store in some mall and getting married.
After a bit more walking around Akashi, we went back to our respective homes. Kuniko has to work tomorrow, and study for her teacher’s test this weekend. I’ve got to work part of the day tomorrow with some other ALTs getting ready for our students’ trip to Australia.
I went over to the yakitori tonight to chat with the master. It was not so busy tonight, and I got lots of Japanese practice chatting with one of the customers, Masao-san. He’s a younger guy that spent half a year in Australia and remembers about ten words of English. So we had to use Japanese only, and that’s always a great situation for me.
Kuniko is going to move in on Monday, and so we’ll start from there getting used to living with each other. Stay tuned to see how domestic life turns out…
