N  35° 38.028 E 139° 42.223

There was plenty of admin work to be done after being away from home for 5 years.

Renewal of my Japanese ID card was the first, followed by an extension of my MyNumber card.

Next I tackled the renewal of my driver’s license. This was not that easy. Fortunately, there was very friendly staff who really helped me. My passport showed 26-04-12 as arrival day in Japan. This was the arrivai in Chichi-Jima and was more than a month before the 26-05-24, the actual day. I explained that I have sailboat and it took me until the 8th until I arrived in Yokohama, so within the required month I came to apply for the extension my license. “What proof for that situation do you have?, was the question of the helpful staff. Now I was glad to be able to show the many customs documents I had to fill in and sent. These documents became the solution. I only needed a copy of the Yokohama arrival document. This I got the same day by email. Next I went back at the “Samezu Driving Licence Examination Center”. The friendly staff prepared all what was needed. This included to get me a kind of “personal caretaker”. A lady came to me and explained me about the tests I have to do the next day at 1100 and asked me to be at the 4th floor at 1020 for final preparations. On the third day I jumped again my bicycle to go to “Samezu”. I arrived 5 min too late and my personal caretaker was already waiting for me at the entrance. I was baffled.

My caretaker accompanied me to the place for the first lecture of the day for “koureisha”. We were three “koureisha”, elderly citizen” who wanted their license to be extended.

The lesson was a detailed explanation on what will happen today including what is import when we have to make an examination drive.

The eyesight test I passed pretty well. Next was the driving test, which I passed as well. Hurray, after having sailed MaRe more than half around the world, I am still able to drive a car in Japan.

Another eyesight test, less sever than the previous one, followed and finally a picture needed to be taken to be shown in the license.

After waiting for a while a staff signaled me to come to his counter and there I got my driver’s license. Success after 3 days!

Beside going to MaRe I completed my small homepage at “www.cat-mare.de”.