Mt Fuji is in Shinjuku?

Friday July 24th

These pictures are not posted in chronological order. Please start at the bottom! (sorry running out of time today)

So after we taught a seminar together Kojja decided he wanted to go climb Mt. Fuji with his buddies. Ummmmmm it was 5pm and the bus to Fuji was scheduled at 730pm. I had called ahead and booked his tickets but we still had to buy food and gear for the trip. Also Henry had left his sneakers at my house. So we jumped on a train and even took a taxi home. While Kojja run to my apartment I visited the 100Yen store and got all his supplies. Yes even a raincoat and a torch. The 100Yen store here is amazing. We also got him energy food and snacks.

Then we jumped into another taxi and got to the station just in time to miss our train. We finally got to Yokohama and caught an express train to Shinjuku. When we arrived at Shinjuku we took a wild guess and decided that the bus stop would also be close to the ticket office. Unfortunately the Shinjuku station is a vast maze. We were right to assume the ticket office would be near the bus office. But by the time we arrived at the ticket office it was 733pm. And you can guess what happened next! The bus had already left and on top of that there were no more buses for the night.

So we were stuck in Shinjuku with some very delicious looking Japanese style packed lunches called bento! We decided to make the best of it. So we found some stairs and sat down to enjoy the delicious food. You can see Kojja in the 4th picture sitting on the steps. His bento is all gone. It was really good. We sat there and just relaxed for about 30 minutes. Henry was in daycare overnight so we were in no big rush. And after 30 minutes a station master came to tell us we couldn't sit there anymore.

What next? I called my friend Tamiko who works right next to Shinjuku station. She joined us and we took sticker pictures or pirikura. That is in those cute photo booths for you guys Stateside! Picture 2 is an enlarged copy of one of the sticker pictures. Kojja decorated this one. You can choose all kinds of photoshop details to add on. For example our hats and Kojja's tiara are photoshopped. Then after you are done you have the option of sending one of the photos to your phone. Photo 3 is of Tami and Kojja outside the photo booths.

After that we went to Mcdonalds so I could charge my phone. It was on it's last battery stripe. Tami's co-worker Anthony joined us. He regaled us with hilarious stories. And even offered to take us on a drive. He had to go home and pick up his car and change first though. So Kojja and I headed to Shibuya and went to a cool internet cafe which had free ice cream and drinks and you could watch dvds, listen to music or read magazines and books for free too. They even had a spot for you to charge your phones. And just in case you forgot your charger - they had rental chargers!

Anthony picked us up and we went to Odaiba. That is the man made island in Tokyo. We ended up having late night Chinese but it was delicious too. Odaiba looks so beautiful at night.

So that was our crazy night in Shinjuku that was supposed to be a night spent climbing Mt. Fuji. Now we know - you have to get there atleast 30 minutes before your bus leaves...

ACL