3.02.2008

Getting Married in Japan

Ive been away for a couple of days, I couldn't post because I was on the road moving around a lot, but I'm getting ahead of my self, let me start at the real beginning of this.

Back in my country, I started to learn Japanese at Apec University where I became very close friends with my J-teacher Tomoko Sensei, in a period of about 1 year and a half, we ended up hanging out a lot, going to concerts, the movies or cultural activities , things like that , so 1 day a J-friend of hers was coming to my hometown to find out some info about classes at the university and so , we ended up going together to meet him and show him around town, long story short, me and that J-guy are finally getting married.

So now begins the part where I will let you know step by step how the marriage to a foreigner thing works here, Ill be posting as I go through the process, anyways, here is step one but every country's requirements are different so you might want to check with your local Japanese embassy if you are outside Japan right now.

Step 1: Get a legal statement that proves you are single in your country.

In my case, the document is called "acta de solteria" which is basically a statement signed by a judge and 3 witnesses proving that I am not currently married and therefore eligible for marriage, this paper has to be legalized by the external affairs office in order to be legal and valid in japan.

I got this paper before coming to japan so that was no biggie, but, the Latin American countries have only 1 embassy in japan and it is in Tokyo, so I had to travel to take said document to my country's embassy in order to have the document validated as legal and then translated, after I got the translations I now have to go to city hall and see what are the requirements for marrying a foreigner in Kyoto, every state has different requirements so I have to wait until Monday to find out, but there is one thing that is truly giving me a headache about this whole affair; the fact that I have a tourist visa at the moment and cant stay longer than 3 months, my visa expires march 25 which is the day I would have to return to my country, legally speaking.

so Ill be keeping you guys posted as this little dorama unfolds, wish me luck.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

it's so nice,
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