Getting ready for Japan

I love to travel - love going to new places, exploring new destinations - but the planning part of any vacation is definitely not all fun and games! Of course, it would be easier to go to a travel agent, tell them where we want to go, give them the dates - and let them deal with all the drudgery! But after our Egypt vacation, which we booked through a reputed and highly recommended agency - no names here - let's just say that the whole experience was underwhelming, to say the least! So no more agencies - meaning that I get the dubious honor of planning all our vacations from A to Z! Of course, it's a lot of work, and I often occasionally make mistakes - but on the whole, it feels good to be in control!!

The biggest decision, inevitably, is the destination! While Ajey and Manasi would be more than happy to head to a beach resort and chill, I usually have more ambitious locations in mind. Like taking the Trans-Siberian railway from Beijing to Moscow, and if that weren't enough, the train actually goes through Mongolia  - I seriously can't think of anything cooler than that!!! My adventurous spirit is limited to urban locations though - any suggestion of roughing it or the dreaded 'camping out', and I'm in full retreat mode - Ajey, on the other hand, would find this kind of actual adventure exhilarating!! So there's the dilemma - finding the right balance between adventure and luxury - a little more than a beach vacation, a little less than a fullout jungle trek! What a tightrope to walk - it's a wonder that we manage to go anywhere at all!

Going to Japan, surprisingly, was a rare, unanimous decision for us! What we do when we get there is still the subject of furious debate, though - oh well, plenty of time to figure that out! Anyway, Japan - first thing, of course is plane tickets! We recently discovered a low-cost airline, Spring Air (thanks, JM!) - when they say low-cost, they mean it - the seats don't even recline! Still, it's only a 2 hour flight, and the prices are unbelievable!!! Shanghai to Tokyo - for about $100 - doesn't get better than this! Of course, they don't fly to Tokyo's Narita International Airport, rather the flight lands at Iberaki airport which is a 2 hour bus ride away from Tokyo - the low airfare trumps everything else, though! Another advantage of this airline - the price doesn't change if you book one-way or return - so we fly into Tokyo, but our return tickets are out of Osaka - love the flexibility!

A huge attraction in Japan is travelling by the world-famous bullet train, the shinkansen - and Tokyo to Osaka seems the perfect way to experience this! And God forbid we should have an inexpensive vacation - to balance out our low airfare, the train tickets are really expensive. We were advised to buy a 7 day rail pass - and this actually turned out to be more than our one-way plane tickets! Well, I guess the only way to get our money's worth would be to take a lot of trains!! The Japan Rail Pass is actually a great idea - just remember that the pass has to be bought before you actually go to Japan. Pay online, and the JR Pass company will FedEx the vouchers to you (anywhere in the world!) - the vouchers then have to be redeemed for the actual Rail Pass at a convenient (I hope!) location in Japan! Couple of anxious days while I waited for the vouchers - even though I buy so much stuff online, I'm still not entirely comfortable with it - what a relief when they arrived, along with a very handy booklet with all train schedules and all locations of JR offices! Whew, one more thing checked off!

Next on the list - hotels! Manasi, of course, being of the new entitled generation thinks even a Marriott is a 'regular' hotel - she knows nothing of the economy hotels (Motel 6, Super 8, Red Roof Inns - fond memories of travel on a shoestring budget!) - it takes nothing short of a luxury resort to impress her! To be honest, I, too, like staying at the bigger 'brand' hotels - no surprises, the service and food is always excellent! These days, we have been staying at Crowne Plaza whenever we travel - not been let down a single time yet - so that's what we ended up booking this time as well! I was a bit tempted to try the local Japanese ryokan hotels - but chickened out in the end! So - 3 cities, 3 different Crowne Plazas!

Doing great here - air tickets, check! Train pass, check! Hotels, check! Now for the biggest item on the list - the tourist visa! Manasi, courtesy of her US passport, can sashay in - but Ajey and I have to apply for yet another visa! For a change, we didn't have to go the Japanese Embassy in Shanghai - instead we filed our application in the Wuxi Citizen Center! Must say that this government office really, really impressed me - everything clean, shiny and organized! I was dying to take a picture - but didn't know if it was allowed or not! And I'll admit this, anytime we have anything to do with the Government here, I'm a little intimidated - better safe than sorry, is always my motto! Anyway, notwithstanding my weird paranoia - we handed in our paperwork, the application fee and our passports - everything seemed to be in order!

Except it wasn't - a couple of days ago, we get a phone call asking us for a detailed itinerary of our visit! Well, I've already handed in our flight itinerary and all our hotel reservations - how much more 'detailed' can you get? Much, much more - as in what we're doing every waking moment we spend in Japan! 'Detailed itinerary' - am I the only one who finds this more than a little strange?! Strange or not, that's what they wanted, and after a day of research - I did come up with a detailed itinerary to hand in! Sorry, Ajey and Manasi - we have an itinerary now, and like it or not, we're sticking to it!! This was 3 days ago - we're supposed to leave next week - record breaking levels of anxiety right now!! We have been assured that our passports will make it back in time - but until they do, I won't be breathing easy!!

Didn't I say planning a vacation is never easy? Touch wood, everything has always worked out for the best in the past! And after all the planning and anxiety, all our vacations have been so memorable - yes, even Egypt! So watch this space for updates about our visa - and of course, our vacation in Japan! Signing off!!

Visa, visa, visa...

Here we were, Ajey and I all set to drive to Shanghai tomorrow to apply for our tourist visa to Japan (yes, we're going to Japan during spring break - yay!) - stop by the embassy, drop off the application, then spend couple of hours doing lunch and some shopping - what could be more perfect?? Well, I thought it might be a good idea to actually take a look at the Japanese Embassy's website to confirm hours of business, documents needed, visa fees - all those pesky little details! And what do you know - the website is available only in Japanese or Chinese - no English!!! After struggling with Google Chrome for a few minutes (few minutes, couple of hours - whatever!), I hit on the solution - why don't I just call??? Good plan - except - should've seen this coming - the automated answering service? Only Japanese or Chinese!!!! No English!!!!

Lucky for me, I know a wonderful person who not only is Japanese, but also a good friend - one distress call from me, and several more calls later, MW was able to come up with the information that we didn't need to go upto Shanghai at all - we could hand in our application in Wuxi. Has to do something with our Chinese resident visa being based in Wuxi - I don't know, I'm just happy to find out before we drove all the way to Shanghai! Seriously, this had never come up in all the searches I did to get the visa information - must have been hidden in the fine print!! And yes, note to self - don't wait till the day before to look up visa information on the official website!! It was just a few months ago, when our Dubai visa application kept me up for a few nights - and now this! You would think that after applying for so many different visas, things would get easier - but no, each time is a new adventure!

For the last 15 years or so, it almost seems like I'm always in the process of applying for some visa or the other! The first ever, of course, was the F1 student visa to the US - this was the one that changed my life forever! It seems a bit silly now - but at that time, the hype and glamour surrounding this visa was indescribable! The queue outside the US Consulate in Mumbai - some people had actually slept on the pavement so they would be first in line - the small waiting room inside, the officer asking questions in a molasses thick American accent, the relief at being approved - and yes, the apprehension and the dawning knowledge that this was just the very beginning of a very long journey!! The H1 work visa followed the F1, as did the Permanent Resident Card or Green Card. Our relationship with the nice people from Immigration Services continues to date - not being US citizens we are required every so often to fill out a bunch of legal forms, not to forget the fingerprinting!! Oh well, the only way out of this is to become a naturalized citizen - but that would mean giving up my Indian passport - and that's not happening, for sure!!

Moving to France was a lot easier - with the new EU regulations, we could travel to most European countries with our EU resident card. We never did make it to the UK - the visa requirement was a big part of that!! And although we drove unfettered through most of continental Europe - ironically, my funniest visa story does come from our time in Europe! The summer before we left France, we decided to take a cruise to Greece - the perfect vacation to end our perfect years in France!! The itinerary included Italy, Greece, and surprisingly a day's halt in Croatia. Italy, Greece - both EU, no problem! Croatia - visa required for Indian citizens. After spending hours on the phone with travel agents and the cruise people, I was assured that I did not need a Croatian visa, as long as I agreed to stay on the ship for that one day! That seemed to be no hardship, so we went ahead with our reservations - our first cruise, exciting!!

Of course, in Venice as we tried to board the ship, we were told we couldn't get on without a Croatia visa. Deep breath - seriously, I need to somehow find a Croatian embassy and get a visa in the few hours before the ship depart??!! Oh no - no running around necessary - for the paltry sum of $200 each, we could get our passports stamped with the visa, right there on the dock! No paperwork, no waiting - visa on demand!! The whole thing reeked of a scheme to fleece unsuspecting, captive travellers like us! After all, what's the worse that we could do - our cruise was fully payed for, there was no way we were walking away!! Not to say that we gave in easily - we waited on the dock for better part of the day, with a line of senior officials coming ashore to mouth platitudes! The high point was when Ajey started to propel Manasi towards the entrance - she has a US passport, she should be able to get on the ship, and Manasi clinging to me for dear life, really thinking her dad was going to make her go by herself! Did I mention she was 3 at the time?!! At the end of the day, there was no option but to pay - the only consolation was that we made them work for every penny. And yes, we did spend a day in Croatia - after all this, wild horses couldn't have kept me away!!

I do understand the need to get visa, I really do - and I also understand bilateral relations between countries, and reciprocal visa agreements! But lot of times it feels like we're being penalized for holding Indian passports - we need visa for every single country we might want to visit, except maybe Nepal or Bhutan! These days, with our travel schedules - a good chunk of my time is spent in researching visa requirements of different places! At the very least, a standardized process for all countries would have made life much easier! And maybe, a frequent flier visa process could be initiated?? I will admit that sometimes I do envy my American friends who can visit most countries with just their passports - that would be so wonderful!

A parting anecdote - when we decide to move to India, I was ecstatic that for once, there would be no visa issues to deal with! Our house-hunting trip, we landed in Chennai at 3am and drove to Asiana hotel - exhausted, jet lagged! The clerk at the check-in desk kept fiddling with our passports, flipping through the pages randomly, comparing Manasi's US passport with ours - I finally lost patience, and asked him what he was looking for. He apologetically confessed that he needed to see our visas - yes, that's right, the one thing I thought I was getting away from!!! Ajey said later I over-reacted, and the poor man was just doing his job - but the word 'visa' acted like a red flag - I most emphatically stated that we had Indian passports, and as such, we were Indian citizens, free to come and go from our country as we wished, and that no-one better dare ask me for a visa here!! 'Emphatically stated' - who am I kidding - I was yelling a little, if a little actually means a lot. Not my finest hour, but in my defense, I was had been on a flight for over 15 hours, it was the middle of the night, I was tired and I just needed a room - right that very instant!!

To Wuxi tomorrow then - and hopefully, there will no glitches (fingers crossed)!! And maybe I'll even convince Ajey to go to Ikea after we're done...