I feel I have become Mr O. Here's my visa application story in progress. I'm preparing documents for visa renewal, for I'll go back to Japan next week. There are two reference web pages and each of them says slightly difference things. One of them tells me that I have to have a visa interview though I don't need to make an appointment for that, while the other says that since the visa I'll renew falls into the same type and category I applied before, I may submit the application documents by mail. I spend hours to complete an online D-160 document which asks me to type all my personal information including my parents' names and birth dates and also asks me tons of barely understandable questions about "are you a terrorist," "are you a member of human trafficking," "are you illegally doing such and such" and so on and so forth. Finally I get the confirmation page and proceeded to another portal website in order to get some sort of official cover letter that authorizes me to mail the documents to the consulate in Tokyo. But there the website requires me to provide a verification number of the application fee payment, the fee I don't need to pay because my visa is sponsored by a US government program, namely, the Fulbright program. Then I end up with clicking the close button of the tab and write another email to the customer service email address to ask what to do with this never-ending application process. I hope the situation improves soon, but Mr O is already deeply harassed by this nebulous chain of processes, where the applicant can never be sure of who knows where what is.
