As I am Australian, obtaining my Japanese license was relatively smooth and only required two visits to the License Centre in Ino Town. The first time was to submit documents for photocopying. It was a painless exercise, but I am still perplexed as to why I could not photocopy the documents myself and simply fax them to the License Centre from my office, and why I had to time the appointment to submit my documents to match the times of other non-Japanese residing in Kochi. The second time was to have my photo taken, take an eye test, and listen to a one-hour lecture about driving with a group of bleary-eyed teenagers. Although this process went smoothly, it took an entire day, and also made me wonder why I couldn't have done it on my previous visit.

Regardless of the fact that my experiences were extremely mild compared to other non-Japanese, it was still a patronising experience as I have been driving for eight years, and made me think about whether my country made Japanese people in similar circumstances as myself do the same thing. So, I asked them.