Applying for Chinese Visa in Tokyo

Today is the first day of the ICU Spring holiday, so I got up at 9am to go to Roppongi to apply for my Chinese tourist visa at the Chinese Embassy for my holiday.

There are lots of different types of visa for China, but I needed an L-visa, which is a tourist visa. Not all countries need a visa just to visit, for example Japanese citizens don't need one, but British people do. I was worried about whether I would be able to get a Chinese visa as I was living in Japan, but there was no problem.

To apply for an L-visa, you need:

- a valid passport, valid for six months after the date of application
- completed Application Form with recent passport-style photograph attached (Page One, Page Two, or you can fill it in at the Embassy)
- photocopy of your passport main page and alien registration card (can do it at the Embassy)
- proof of booked return flights
- hotel reservation (although I didn't need one)

The Chinese Embassy in Tokyo Consular Section (which handles visa applications) is very inconveniently open only from 9am until 12 noon. Luckily I only live about an hour away from Roppongi so I didn't have to get up too early.

I had copied a map onto paper from a website, but it turned out that the roadside maps were much more helpful, because the map's scale was a bit strange. It looked much closer to Roppongi station than it actually was!

Because I had a bit of difficulty finding the place (I overshot the turning at one point and had to backtrack) I took some photos that will hopefully help anyone going there!

This is the route I took, I marked the roads with red, and the Embassy is the red circle in the bottom left hand corner.



And here's a plain version of the map.


Coming from Roppongi station (there are only subway lines) you either take Exit 1a from the Hibiya line (日比谷線, Hibiya-sen) or Exit 3 from the Toei Oedo line (都営大江戸線, Toei Ooedo-sen). Both exits come out on the same main road, but the Oedo line one is slightly further away from the Embassy.

From either exit, you turn left along the main road with the elevated highway in the centre of it. You follow that road past the Roppongi Hills shopping centre, with its huge glass building. You need to turn left onto TV Asahi Road (TV朝日通り, TV Asahi doori), which is about seven minutes walk from the station. It's a very unimpressive road, which is why I missed it, I didn't think such a normal looking road could have such a grand name, and there were no roadsigns, as is often the case on smaller roads in Japan.

But this is what the road looks like at the turning from the main road. The construction work on the left won't be there forever though, so it might look drastically different in a few weeks!


You follow this road for the rest of the way (it's easy once you're on it). You can see the Roppongi Hills tower for most of the way, but you're heading away from it.


Along the wall there are nice bamboo trees, although this photo was taken looking back towards the main road, so they're actually on the left hand side heading towards the Embassy.


You pass the Grand Hyatt Tokyo on the left, which has this nice water feature outside.


After those landmarks, just keep following the road south.



And after around ten minutes, give or take a few minutes depending on your walking speed, you'll see this building, which houses the Consular Section.


It's opposite this bright green sauna, which you definitely won't miss! Even though I nearly missed the Embassy, because there's just a small sign outside the front door proclaiming what the building is.


I was really worried I'd be late and have to do the whole journey again the next day. But I arrived at 11.40, with 20 minutes to spare.

I had my bag checked and went through a metal detector at the front door, and then was left to my own devices. There were windows along the wall on the first floor (that's Japanese first floor, British ground floor) so I went up to one and said I wanted to apply for an L-visa. I wasn't sure if I should use Japanese or English, because I don't speak any Chinese! But I used English, and the woman directed me to the third floor (again, Japanese third floor). I took the stairs, and entered a hot, crowded and slightly chaotic room.

It was 17C outside, and yet they still had the heating on. Obviously going by the mentality of: "It's February, therefore we need the heating on."

I had no idea what I was meant to do. There was a crowd of people to my left, who seemed to be lining up and waiting for a small window. Then there was this waiting area to the right. That seemed more like what I wanted, but I couldn't find a ticket machine to get a number for it.


I asked a Japanese woman who was waiting (she was holding her passport so I knew she was Japanese) where I could get a ticket, and she told me I had to wait in the long queue and tell the people at the small window what I wanted, and then they would give me a ticket for the windows.

So I joined what I assumed was the back of the line, but it was very hard to tell. There were some tables for people to fill out visa application forms, but thankfully I'd printed one out from a website (here's Page One, and Page Two) and filled it in at home. Much easier!


As I was waiting, I realised that most people were photocopying the main page of their passports and alien registration cards at machines in the corner. I wasn't sure if I needed to, but I decided to do it anyway, to save lining up all over again. The woman in front of me was having a lot of trouble, but I had no difficulty. You put in a Y10 into the smaller machine to the left of the photocopier and then press 'start' (スタート, sutaato). It was very simple. After doing it I just rejoined the line.

It moved quite quickly, and I was standing behind a British guy, so I felt comforted knowing I wasn't alone in this endeavour!

When I got to the window I showed them my application form, passport and photocopy, and told them I wanted to apply for an L-visa. (This time I spoke in Japanese.) They checked the documents and said they were fine, then gave me a ticket number and asked me to take a seat and wait for the main windows.

It calmed down a lot while I was waiting, and they turned the air con on, so it was quite pleasant to sit down and watch some of the kids running round in circles. It was the most interesting thing going on in the room!

They had only one window for visa application, and then five others for other things, but I couldn't read the Chinese characters for what they were doing. I hope my limited knowledge of Japanese kanji gets me through a little bit while in China. China uses simplified characters, whereas Japan usually uses the older more traditional forms. A notable exception is 国 (country, kuni), which is the same in China and Japan, but in Taiwanese the original character, 國, is used. Much more complicated!

I had to wait for ten numbers to be called before mine but I was only waiting for about fifteen minutes.

There were no problems when I went up to the window. The website I used to check what I needed to apply for the visa said that I'd need a hotel reservation, but I'm staying with friends so I didn't have one. The woman didn't say anything about it, so hopefully there won't be a problem when I come to collect and pay for the visa.You can collect the visa 4 days after applying, or you can pay to collect it after two days, but I didn't do that.

She told me that I can pick it up on Tuesday morning with a receipt she gave me. They kept my passport so they could put the visa in it.

So I'll go back to collect the visa on Tuesday, and hopefully there won't be any problems!

Matsumoto

Yesterday (Sunday), my friend Wynne and I went to Matsumoto, which is a castle city about two and a half hours north of Tokyo by train.

We went by Azusa express train from Tachikawa, and that left at 9.30am and arrived just before noon. It cost quite a lot (Y5,870 one-way) because you have to pay the express fee on top of the normal ticket. (You can take normal trains all the way as it's all the JR Chuo line, but it takes hours and hours and the price isn't too different in the end.) Wynne and I bought our tickets at a ticket machine on the platform, and you can't buy the express ticket from them, so we had to get an extra one from the conductor once we were on the train.

There were lots of nice sights as we left Tokyo and zoomed north through the Japan Alps. As it's winter, the weather was cold but clear.



When we arrived at Matsumoto, the announcement was very funny, with an extremely elongated "Matsumotooooooooo".




We were quite hungry when we arrived, so our first port of call was lunch. We walked through the town (and it was noticeably colder than Tokyo, with the higher altitude) and found a restaurant that had one of Matsumoto's specialities - kake-soba (掛蕎麦) noodles.


The noodles were delicious, and came in a very warming broth. But the green tea that came with it was the best thing - it was smoothest tea I've ever drunk. And it warmed me right through.

After lunch we wandered through the town towards its main attraction, the famous castle. It's one of Japan's four castles listed as National Treasures. Walking through the town, you could always see the Japan Alps over the buildings, and they were covered in snow, so it was really lovely.

And there it is! Matsumoto Castle! (松本城, Matsumoto-jou.)

You can walk round the side for free, but then you have to pay to go into the grounds and inside the castle itself.

This is my favourite photo that I took of the castle. I was so happy to finally be standing there, as I didn't get a chance to get to Matsumoto the first time I came to Japan.

The entrance fee was only a few hundred yen, but they also had a student discount, so it was even cheaper for us.

The inside of the castle was much like any other interior I'd seen in Japan, but it had nice views of the surroundings and the mountains in the distance.

This was the top room, which you could only get to by traversing a single narrow staircase.

After exploring the castle and its grounds, we went to the nearby museum, which was included in the price of the ticket.

They had a few stands of ornamental dolls because Japan's Doll Festival (雛祭り, Hina Matsuri) is coming up in early March.

They also had a display of wooden phalluses, which were used in traditional festivals in the area.

After the museum, we went to a famous old bookstore in the centre. It was crammed full of old newspapers, magazines and books. I nearly bought an old Japanese magazine from the 50s, but it cost Y3,500 and I was already over my budget, so I decided not to.

After that, Matsumoto doesn't have a lot of attractions, but we wandered around a couple of Shrines and then went to see this clock. Every hour on the hour the clock opens and figures of children playing instruments dance in a circle.

It was very cute, but we ran to catch it, and then realised that it wasn't really worth the hurry, but it's nice if you're in the area on the hour.

We weren't hungry for dinner yet, so we went to see a traditional well a short walk from the city centre. On the way we passed this random penny-farthing bicycle! I never expected to see one of those just randomly on a street in Japan!

I tasted some of the water from the well, and it was delicious. Really clean and clear. I wish I'd brought a bottle to fill up!

For dinner we went to a restaurant that was recommended in the guidebook, Kura, and it served another of Matsumoto's specialities, raw horse meat (馬刺し, basashi).

It opened at 5.30, and we were waiting outside in the cold (as the sun went down the temperature dropped to near zero). It was gone 5.30 when someone inside noticed us and opened the doors.

We knew what we wanted - horse! It was quite expensive, but definitely worth it. It was such gorgeous tender meat. I really enjoyed it.

The basashi was quite small between the two of us, so we also got some sushi and a seafood rice bowl. What a dinner!

We had to finish dinner quite quickly because we wanted to catch the 18.35 train back to Tokyo. But we made it in time, and the sunset seen from inside the station was amazing!

We got back to the guesthouse at about 9.30pm, so it was quite a long day, and we were really tired on the train home. But it was a wonderful day - so nice to finally see Matsumoto Castle!

Pancake Day in Japan

Tuesday this week was Shrove Tuesday, so I invited Rob, Katy, Wynne from the guesthouse, and Ella, Matt, Fran and Hattie from the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies round to the guesthouse for the evening, for a good old British pancake day.

I was surprised because Wynne didn't know what Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday, was. But then we realised that in America it's usually called Mardi Gras. I assume Pancake Day is a British name for it.

Ella was our resident pancake making genius, so she made the mix, which everyone contributed to with different ingredients. Then she, Fran and I made an assembly line, and made enough pancakes for about two per person.

It was a lot of fun, messy fun, with flour everywhere, but I had a really nice time. It was nice to be able to do something British in Japan properly, as usually something is missing, but we had sugar and lemon (which Wynne found really weird, but it's the standard filling in Britain!), and chocolate spread and bananas too.

I made pancakes when I was here in Japan two years ago, but it was much nicer to share them with lots of friends.

Tokyo Station and Tokyo Tower

Two Saturdays ago, the day after Dan and I went to Yasukuni Shrine, we went to the area around Tokyo station.

It was a gorgeous winter day, with the typical pure blue sky, so the skyscrapers looked amazing.

The first place on our list was the Imperial Palace, so we walked from the station. I didn't take any photos of the Palace itself, because I've been there close to ten times, but I always like the look of this fountain when I pass it.

After the Imperial Palace, Dan and I walked to the Diet Building (国会議事堂, kokkai-gijidou). I was glad he suggested going there, as I've done the major tourist sites in the area so many times, but had never seen the Diet.

And from there we walked to Tokyo Tower. We considered getting the train, but we had a completely free afternoon and the weather was lovely, so we found our way. It took about an hour.

I'm never been to the top observation deck at 250m, because you have to pay extra to go up from the main observation deck at 150m. So we decided to go the whole way and pay the extra. The view was fantastic, but it was a windy day and the Tower was actually swaying. It made us both feel quite motion-sick, so we didn't stay up there too long. But I'm glad I did go up, because I may not have had the chance again.

Mt Fuji was visible, but some clouds got in the way.

Tokyo Bay was also visible, and I'd never seen it "from the air" before, so that was nice.

After Tokyo Tower we decided to head home because we were both quite tired. But it was probably the best day of showing someone Tokyo I've had, because I got to see new sides of places I'd been countless times.

Yasukuni Shrine & The War Memorial Museum

On Friday Dan and I went to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, which gained infamy for enshrining the wardead, often war criminals, from the days when Japan tried to build its empire in Asia, and during WWII. There was a lot of negative press when it was brought to light that some of Japan's prime ministers had been visiting the Shrine annually to pay their respects.

We were interested to see what all the fuss was about, and I'd never been there before, which is always a bonus when doing touristy things!

One of the guards tried to stop me taking a photo of the actual Shrine, and that's when I saw the No Photography sign. Oops! But I got this one photo.

From the grounds of the Shrine you can see the Hosei University Ichigaya campus, where a few Leeds students were placed. I actually originally wanted to go to Hosei, because of the central location, but from what I've heard I'm getting a much better education at ICU.

There's a War Memorial Museum (靖国遊就館, Yasukuni Yushukan) in the grounds of the Shrine, just to the right of the main road. Dan and I didn't have any plans for the afternoon, so we decided to wander round the museum. And entry was very cheap for students (Y500), but a normal adult ticket was Y800.

After the moving experience of going around the Hiroshima War Memorial Museum in 2008, I was expecting something equally as good. Unfortunately, I found that a lot of the information was very biased, and a lot of the awful things that happened were glossed over, portrayed as necessary, or just not mentioned.

I was very disappointed with the museum. Even though they had a lot of interesting exhibits, the lack of balance in the information put a downer on the whole experience. I wouldn't recommend going there, unless you fancy going round and picking holes in everything!

Overall, it was an interesting afternoon at Yasukuni, and the Shrine area was very nice, but I wouldn't go to the Museum again.