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JimSwill · Joined: 30 Oct 2009 Posts: 12 Location: Middle

Hello one and all,

Submitted all the paperwork for my marriage in Kyoto last week! Pretty damned stoked to say...

IMMIGRATION in Kyoto (not stoked).

It is the eternal - one hand does not know what the other is doing...

Long story short the guy at the Higashiyama office says that I need a kekkon shomeisho (marriage certificate) from my country. So, I phone the Canadian Consulate in Osaka and they tell me that they don't do them and that they are not usually needed (In Osaka, anyway).

Going to go back to the office in Kyoto and tell them... I guess.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed?

Thanks in advance,

Jim

mitsui · Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 1562 Location: Kawasaki

Don't get that. Don't see why being Canadian makes it different.
I assume you got married before your ceremony in Kyoto.

JimSwill · Joined: 30 Oct 2009 Posts: 12 Location: Middle

Yeah, got married before our ceremony -- will do that next year.

cat mother · Joined: 22 Sep 2009 Posts: 62

Did you get married in Canada or in Japan?
If in Japan, then you will need to register your marriage in Canada and get a Canadian marriage certificate, most likely translated into Japanese.

It's perfectly ok for the immigration guy to ask for this document. Lately, they've been cracking down on paper marriages, and now ask for all sorts of random stuff to prove they are doing their job.

mitsui · Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 1562 Location: Kawasaki

I think because of the rise of fake marriages.

Inflames · Joined: 02 Apr 2006 Posts: 486

My Canadian friend got married in Osaka in 2011 and immigration asked for it then.

FWIW you can also try and explain, to immigration, why you can't come up with the document (the letter my friend got said he could explain if it wasn't possible). I'm pretty sure my friend actually went to Tokyo to get something from the Canadian embassy, though I'm not sure.

JimSwill · Joined: 30 Oct 2009 Posts: 12 Location: Middle

Talked to the director of immi. in Osaka said they knew about the change - a little while ago the Can. gov. stopped providing it - but said that, other, smaller immi. offices might not be so well informed... No problems now (crosses fingers). Now I can worry about finding some PT work!

Thanks all

Jim

Cool Teacher · Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 11:11 am Post subject:

JimSwill · Joined: 30 Oct 2009 Posts: 12 Location: Middle

Sometimes (Often) I feel like I am the main character from Kafka's The Castle.

Having a Japanese wife (wow - that might be the first time I've written those words in that order other than on xhamster) makes me feel as if I can finally enter (read into this whatever you like).

I am drinking SAKE - starting now.

Solar Strength · Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 557 Location: Bangkok, Thailand

JimSwill · Joined: 30 Oct 2009 Posts: 12 Location: Middle

Married in Kyoto.

The thing with these message boards is that people are often wrong. Because they have had to deal with certain branches of government they think that the way they had to do something is the way.

The truth is you don't know until you have to handle the situation. It is different from one way to the next. You have to roll with the punches, don't take anything to hard. Take it all lightly.

One fellow over the phone said they are cracking down on people who marry on tourists visas. He said I must go to wherever and, "be really really really nice," to the people there. Yeah. Ok. I tell my old lady - maybe you will have to buy them a nice dinner...

Meanwhile I am become a nervous wreck... Mad delusions poor through my mind. My wife is going to lose her patience. I can't go back to Canada. They will seize me at the airport for the 236.40 I am behind on my student loan. I am going to end up homeless in Tokyo - overstaying my tourist visa I will accrue some sort of insurmountable fine - and an agent will pick me up off the street, stroke my long, greasy mop back and say, "There is work for you in Fukushima."

Next person said everything is fine.

If all this doesn't work out I am buying a boat. A nice sail boat. And I am gonna just sail. Catch my dinner. And become a free man of the sea. If that's the way I go... [/i]