Commentary by Ira
Bodhi matter-of-factly told me this morning that he wanted to travel all over the world. It is his goal to go to every continent. Not sure where that came from, but I can guess it was probably his father.
We have been traveling internationally with Bodhi since just before he turned one. He had not quite learned to walk and the 26 hours of air flights was not terrible. Quite the opposite as he was the only one who got any sleep. Of course, as soon as we got to Thailand, he decided that he would commemorate his birthday and the meeting of his Thai grandma (He calls her Ya-Ya) by walking for the first time. The flight back was much more wiggling and restlessness, but he was still a great traveler.
I walked him up and down the airplane at least a hundred times.
Now, at six, he is already on his second passport.
Baby passport pictures are incredibly difficult. So many rules coupled with a wiggle baby is just exhausting.
Tell a baby to not smile and they will smile. Tell a baby to stay still and they will crawl up and down you.
Not to mention having a baby sit on a stool with no support or restraints, which about sent me over the edge. And because I am clearly a glutton for punishment, I thought adding the challenge of applying for visas would be great fun. That has yet to be decided. We have had nothing but horror stories handed our way about the tedious, difficult, and expense process of applying for a visa. My anxiety has been amped up ever since we decided to really do this. My only experience with international visa was last summer when we discovered that our flight back home from our annual Thailand trip was 3 days over the maximum stay without a visa. How hard could it be to get an extension? Ha. Joke’s on me. Let me preface this by saying that Thailand is HOT. Like summer in Florida hot and the application process for a visa in Chiang Mai is mostly waiting outdoors, with few chairs for sitting, and lots of people.
And lots of languages all sounding very frustrated and annoyed. Not to mention we had a 6-yr-old and an 86-yr-old with us. And I was about to lose my s&@t!.
After several hours of waiting and confusing instructions, we decided to save my sweet, frail mother-in-law from heatstroke and just pay the fine when we exited the country. We can now joke about it, but at the time it was a little scary taking that chance. Thank goodness Ira’s first language is Thai because there is no way I could have survived that situation without him.
I am great!
Fast forward to today, his usefulness has run out. Not only am I filling out all the visa forms for all of us, Ira thought this would be a good time for our annual trip to Thailand so Bodhi can see his Ya-Ya. Oh, and let’s stop in Japan for a few days on the way there so Bodhi can get as much Pokémon immersion as his heart desires. We’ve all really wanted to go. Sounds like fun, right? Yes! However, here’s the thing about visas. You have to surrender your passport to complete the process. No big deal, we still have until August. But wait! What would all this fun be if there weren’t a few hiccups right? Enter Ira with his nearly expired passport. Visas require at least 6 months before expiration PAST this time. Not a big deal, right? We can just expedite the passport! Ha ha ha. Nope. Current wait time for expedited passports exceeds the normal time for regular passport processing time. It’s like a really terrible K-drama without the romance and required car accident.
Eh. It’s mildly inconvenient. But really, JAPAN! WE ARE GOING TO JAPAN!
At this point, there’s not much we can do. We are going to just hope for the best, fly to Tokyo, eat all the ramen and sushi our stomachs can handle, and Pokémon our way through to Thailand and back home again. I’m hoping to have our visa appointments scheduled for the week that we come back and we will just try and forget about the stress until then.
Again, JAPAN! Here we come!
Under the Bodhi Tree 