I'm glad you're free to write this and that you had enough Japanese to help you when you were arrested. That would have been awful to not understand anything; that's something easy for me to imagine, since I began living in Spanish-speaking countries without adequate Spanish

I guess your arrest shows us just how sensitive Japan is to bad publicity re dolphin and whale hunts. I didn't realize that volunteering could be considered a visa violation in some countries.

Laws vary so much; in a lot of places, it's guilty until proven innocent or you cough up some cash.

I look forward to reading the rest of this story.