Working Holiday Visa: Approved

Well, I'm in Toronto today (closest Japanese consulate to me is in Toronto, so I took a little trip up here). I visited the Japanese consulate to submit an application for a Working Holiday Visa which will allow me to live and work in Japan for 6 months to a year..

I took a big elevator up to the 33rd floor of this really tall office building in downtown Toronto.. Off of the elevator, I made a right, and saw this big sign in both english and Japanese that says Japanese Consulate General, and it has some scrolls next to it and some bamboo and it's a very "japanese" feeling place.. So I make my way down the hall, and take a seet in a small waiting room, along the wall there's a row of booths with forms and brochures in them, all in Japanese. The visa officers were just comming back from their lunch break when I arrived, and there was this glass window with a slot at the bottom like in some movie theaters, but it was covered by some blinds... Suddenly, the curtain behind the glass window thing opened and a short Japanese woman standing on the other side of the glass said "Ha~i, dozo.. Please come forward"..

There were about 4 other people there in the waiting area, and they had all arrived before I did, so I let them go first.. Finally, everyone else had gone, and so I stood up and walked over to the window, half nervous, have brave (weird feeling).. I took my file folder with all of my required documents out of my school bag.. and handed them to the lady along with my passport.. She took a few minutes, sorted the papers, and didn't really say anything at first.. Then for a second she seemed confused and told me one of the forms was missing, and I got really nervous for a second, but then she found it stuck to the back of another sheet.. Big sigh of relief.. She smiled, and went over all of my forms that I'd filled out.. and asked me a few questions like "Have you ever been to Japan before?" "Have you ever applied for a working holiday visa before?"..

And then she read my "letter of intent" which is basically a short letter describing why you want a working holiday visa and what your motives are etc. The first paragraph of my letter is in Japanese, and basically introduces myself and explains that I've been learning Japanese for about 2 years but am still pretty week at it, thus the letter would be written in english from this point on... She smiled when she read it, and asked "Where did you study Japanese"...

Finally, after going through my submitted itinerary and a few other papers, and cropping my submitted passport-sized photograph and glueing it onto one of the forms, she looked up and me and said "your visa has been approved! please return here in one week to pick up your passport and visa, if there are any issues we'll call you"

I felt like a 10 billion yen, but was still pretty shocked and nervous so I dont think it was really showing on my face!