Shinjuku Station? I'll walk...

You would think I would learn my lesson by now... if it looks further than 6 inches away on the map... don't walk.

Saturday I spent running around to various spots in Tokyo to arrange my final adventures for my time in Japan. First stop: Shinjuku Station to book bus tickets. I was to meet Paul there at 11 am (he was not walking), so I left the hostel a little before 10 am. As I was halfway there, I realized it was going to take longer than expected, so I picked up the pace: mistake. I power-walked the rest of the way and got to the station at about 11:15 (before Paul mind you) and was utterly exhausted! I made the mistake of not having breakfast before I left or drinking anything: a stupid decision of course. I found a little cafe in the station and found a drink and a croissant to much on, but it was too late, I felt very faint and had to sit down and recover for a few minutes.

After getting twisted up in the station, we finally found the ticket booth we had to go to in order to book the bus tickets that would take us to the 5th Station on the Kawagachi Trail of... Mt. Fuji. More on that tomorrow... I am climbing Mt. Fuji on Thursday.

Bus tickets in hand, we caught the metro to go to Asakusa Station (not to be confused with Akasaka, where we reside) and found the Tobu Tourist Center (where we were promptly shown a map in English for where to go to find the English-speaking center). We booked our travel to Nikko, a World Heritage Site about 2 hours North of Tokyo. We purchased the "freepass" (similar to Hakone) so it included round-trip travel and our transporation there, as well as entrance into the main shrines.

Back to the hostel to rest for the afternoon, we would have an early morning Sunday.