Originally Posted by
evergrn
Just wondering. Are there any major airports in the world with exit immigration where this (international departure -> landside) is freely possible without escort?
At airports in the USA where departing international flights share a terminal with domestic flights, you can usually head out into baggage claim/ground transportation on your own. Not sure about dedicated INTL terminals (like at ORD, for instance) that aren't physically connected airside with other domestic terminals--although I'm sure others will chime in.
Originally Posted by
jib71
I don't know for sure, but I think that the circumstances in the case that you described are fundamentally different. Since you had already passed through the exit immigration process, immigration needed to record the fact that you were, in fact, continuing your stay on a 90 day temporary visitor, (Or whatever visa you were originally given on entry to Japan). They won't just treat you as an arriving passenger and give you a new 90 day visa. They needed to update their systems and you got a neat "EXIT CANCELLED" stamp as a souvenir of the experience.
In the case of a transit passenger who has arrived on a flight from, say, the USA, there is no need to cancel or reverse an exit process. This may be why the post that I linked to above indicated that the transit passenger passed back through transit security and followed the path for arriving passengers to enter Japan.
Not sure if it matters, but I was travelling on a Japanese passport so I *should* be able to come and go as I please
Regardless, just passing through INTL-INTL transit security doesn't clear you for entry into Japan, so you'd need to get your documents checked somehow to go landside. My point was that because unlike the US, Japan actually has a physical exit immigration process, NRT's departure hall isn't laid out with INTL arrivals passengers in mind. So an inbound INTL passenger in the departures hall would still have to get to an immigration agent to clear him/her for enter into Japan, which IIRC involves going the wrong way through exit immigration.
To go landside, you're really meant to head to baggage claim upon arrival like other pax ending their trip in Japan AFAIK.
EDIT:
To clarify: For instance, when my Vietnamese friend is just connecting from the USA through NRT back to VN, he doesn't need to apply for a visa. When he wants to actually enter Japan (i.e. go landside), however, he'd need a visa.
TIMATIC reflects this:
Visa required, except for Passengers with a confirmed onward ticket for a flight to a third country on the same calendar day. They must stay in the international transit area of the airport and have documents...