So early Friday morning Bill and I got up, had breakfast at the hotel and headed out to find the Chinese Embassy.
We needed to go to the Chinese Embassy to try to get a visa for Bill. Our walk was about 15 mins. We walked through a very lovely park. The shade was very welcomed. I was/am surprised at how warm Tokyo is in the summer. I really had no idea. It is hot!
Once we found the Embassy we had to find the right entrance. Just around the corner and we found the entrance. The Embassy was very busy. I am not sure what kind of business all these people were doing but, lots going on. EVERYTHING is in kanji. So I started Looking for a sign to tell me where to go. There was very limited English and it did not make sense. So we walked up to window 6 and she told us to go to the 3rd floor. Again once we arrived in on that floor, lots of people, lots of business. No English. We stood in line. Once we got to the window, in broken English we are told we can not get a tourist visa in person.
So plan B. We went back to the hotel, asked for a travel agent near by and thought we would try one more avenue. After a 15 min walk to the travel agent, no luck. We will have to send Bills passport off and hope he can get in and out of Okinawa on orders until his passport comes back with the visa.
We caught up with 3 of our friends and headed back out of the hotel to get lunch. None of us were feeling too adventurous and wanted something that would stay with us for our trip to Fuji. We ate a nice lunch at a restaurant near Hiro plaza.
Back to the hotel to gear up an head out. Packing all the gear was an ordeal. Making sure we had everything.
I totally felt like I was forgetting something. I did, but this will be seen a little later on.
So out of the hotel for the fourth time today and we are headed to the subway. I have the route we needed to take written down, but I was uncertain it would get us to the right place.
I knew we if we left by two an got on the train by 4pm and made it too the mountain by 7pm we were good. Sunrise is at 4:54am. That was the plan.
Well we left at 2:20pm. Made it to the subway, but there was a rail car accident and the subway was shut down for four hours. Kink in the plans.
A very nice attendant helped us find the correct bus to get on and told us when to get off. Out of the subway we headed. We qued in line for the bus. The bus arrived and we double checked it was going to Shinjuku station. And it was. Success. But now I was worried we could not buy the correct ticket at this station. I had only looked for the nearest station for us to take.
The Bus was standing room only, all 5 of us huddled in the wheel chair section and made the best of the situation. A lady had a large stroller and we moved out of her way so she could stow the stroller where we ha been standing. Shortly we arrived at Shinjuku 1. We got off. As we are standing there, looking for a subway entrance the woman with the stroller hops of the bus and chases after us. We had gotten off at the wrong stop. Get back on the bus We discuss our plans and she helps us understand there are 5 stops with the same name. We wanted the 5th stop.
She asks where we were from. We all say Okinawa. She Thanks us for the help for the earthquake. And at the next stop she gets off. It was really nice of her to help us.
Finally we make it to the 5th sinjuku stop. We get off and head down into the tunnels of the metro and trains.
There are thousands of Japanese walking and going places. We are the lost Americans looking for something to tell us where to go. Finally I ask. We are off to get tickets for the train.
We get to the first ticket booth and they don't sell that ticket there. In broken English he tells us to go down and go to the Blue plaza. We head further down in the depths of the station. Walk a ways and look for anything that has the JR train line name on it. We stand in line, but we have divided and asking multiple people for direction. We are not at the right place. We have to head up and out and look for the View travel agent. It is at this point I remember what I forgot. I forgot to tell everyone to bring their passport to buy the discount train ticket. Hoping we can do with out.
We get into the travel agent and huge disappointment, they say no passport no ticket. We are all like WHAT!!! We say we will pay full price and they say ok, no problem. Whew! We get the tickets and once again head into the depths of the train station to find track 10. The train leaves at 4:30. We are about 30mins behind. Not too bad. We caught the train, we are on our way. Now two more train switches and a bus ride and we will be at station 5 to begin our hike. Stay tuned to see if we make it on time to see the sunrise at 4:54am.
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