I concur with the your assessment of the embassy. I needed notary services here in japan and went to the us embassy. They refused to notarize a form from the us post office, the mail forwarding service form, because of THEIR interpretation of the form. I didn't know thats part of the notaries job lol. I wanted to change address for myself and my wife and they wanted $50 each for 2 forms lol. I bought a webcam and did it for $45 which included the price of webcam. never again will i use the embassy unless absolutely necessary. what a waste of time with all their security crap just to get inside.