Update on my car status.

Well, so the shit has really hit the fan on my whole car situation.

The board of education, who was handling all my car paperwork, took too long to get the title changed over to my name and now the biennial car registration has expired (they had over a month and a half to take care of it and it can be done in 10 days). Last week they took my car to do the inspection/registration and then told me they couldn't because I haven't paid the car tax. I never paid the car tax because the title isn't in my name so they never sent me the bill!

So, to review:

I couldn't change the title because the registration expired.

I couldn't get new registration because I never paid the car tax.

I couldn't pay the car tax because the title wasn't changed.

Now there's a Catch-22 for you. Basically the solution is that I have to pay the tax on behalf of the old owner, which will probably take about 2 months at the rate the board of education handles things. At that time I can do the registration and the title change, get insurance and then become a legal driver; however, I still have the problem of my soon-to-expire international driver's license. I can't take care of that until I can drive legally, so I'll be cutting it really close, especially since it can take months to past the Japanese license test.

I am so screwed it's not even funny. All of this is costing me an arm and a leg too. The car place is also holding on to my car during all of this. ARG!