I’m very sorry to hear that, especially under such confusing circumstances. When my grandma died in a home, we didn’t get the death certificate for aaages and when it came, the cause of death read ‘Not enough evidence to suggest other than natural causes’. Such an odd phrasing. It haunted us for ages.
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Sympathies, for what they are worth.
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Much sympathy.
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I am so sorry to hear that. And after you just visited.
My condolences to you and your family. May the good memories prevail.
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Sincere condolences, Benkyo.
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Oh man. I’m sorry.
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Condolences. I hope those still living bear it as well as possible.
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Losing a parent is always hard.
Thinking of you and yours.
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I appreciate the sympathy. Also, feels weird to realize that outside of immediate family, there aren’t any other people I feel like mentioning this to. You lot are great.
No funeral, as per his instructions. We are planning to visit to do something with the ashes to say goodbye, but they won’t be delivered for about a month, and the kids’ passports just expired. I want to be there to help my brother out with processing everything, but he’s stuck handling everything mostly alone, as usual.
Thanks again. We move on.
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“We have to go to my father’s funeral” is a pretty good reason to ask for expedited passport renewal.
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I’m so sorry to hear this, Benkyo.
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I’m sorry to hear this, Ben. I hope you have plenty of good memories to help you through your loss and that you will be able to visit your family again soon for your goodbyes.
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Annoyed.
(not at) the tax office saga/rant
Go to city hall, am redirected to the tax office. Tax office turns out to be advance appointments only. Call them up in the lobby of the tax office, guy says the next available appointment is in November, but first wants to confirm whether I really need an appointment. I can’t recall/translate the whole conversation, but after about 10 minutes of setting out the situation, it went something like this:
The deceased has never been resident in Japan?
Correct.
The deceased had no income in Japan?
Correct.
The deceased has no property in Japan?
Correct.
Well then, there’s nothing you need to do, no documents you need to submit.
Really? I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.
The deceased had no income in Japan?
Correct.
The deceased had no property in Japan?
Correct.
With no property or income in Japan, there’s no Japanese tax to be paid.
Well, I heard differently, I don’t want to get in trouble later for not paying inheritance tax.
The deceased had no income at all in Japan?
None.
The deceased had no property at all in Japan, and never lived in Japan?
Right.
So there’s no tax to be paid [waffling]
Look, I’m going to need that in writing or something. Regardless of what I’m told over the phone, I can’t reference a phone conversation if I’m accused of tax evasion.
Who told you that you needed to contact the tax office?
Well, this is just information I researched online.
But the deceased had no income in Japan?
Right.
And no property? You are just receiving an inheritance?
Right. Look, I’m still going to need an appointment to get this in writing…
Please wait a minute, I’ll put the person in charge of inheritance tax on the line.
…
After this, I finally got someone who got all the details from me, working through all the info I already knew from the internet, which I knew better than to interrupt, eventually established that I might well have to pay tax, and in any case do have to file paperwork, but that I had 10 months to do so, so there was no pressing need to deal with it right now. This was where I finally got to the reason for the phone call, which was that the lawyers in the UK weren’t going to be available to come up with the necessary supporting documents in 8 months time, and I need the paperwork from the Japanese side, and a list of required supporting documents to get from the UK lawyers, and the sooner the better. The whole thing took about 40 minutes.
I now have a contact name, an internal line number, and not-an-appointment, but rather an arrangement for her to hand over a pamphlet, required paperwork, and hopefully some relevant supplementary info on Friday. If it turns out I need an appointment, I can then make one for November. Hopefully I won’t need an appointment.
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I am very sorry to hear about your father’s death.
On your little rant:
Since my wife started working for a German federal agency I could confirm what before I always only suspected. The different branches and agencies on the different levels (federal, state, communal) have no idea how anything works outside of their direct work field (and not even that’s guaranteed, partly because of incompetence partly because of over-complicated structures).
So as a citizen you need to be lucky to get a person who knows where to send you for what you need or otherwise you are stuck in a damn loop of misinformation and wrong referrals.
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This morning I drove over to the hospital, had an MRI of my head and drove back home. All within the space of an hour.
The appointment itself was only booked a couple of weeks ago. It’s nice when the NHS works efficiently.
Hopefully the results come back just as quickly. 
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Went to the London Autumn PEN SHOW and saw lots of pens.
The stallholder wasn’t ready for me to say “GASP - is that a Waterman Laureat II from the 90s?” “Er… yes, actually.”
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That is, indeed, a LOT of pens!
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There were two exhibition halls full of tables, it’s the first time I’ve gone but there is clearly a BIG market for this!
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And I thought board games was a luxury hobby! Those prices!
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