Collecting My Chinese Visa

This morning I went back to the Chinese Embassy in Roppongi to collect my Chinese tourist visa. For directions and other information on applying for Chinese visas in Tokyo, please see my previous post.

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.

I went up to Window 6, which is the first port of call when you enter, and showed the woman my receipt. She gave me a number and told me to pay Y4,000 at a machine in the corner. The machine looked like one of the machines you can buy meals from in restaurants like Matsuya.

I selected the Y4,000 button and inserted the money, and it gave me a receipt. I took that receipt, the receipt they gave me last week and my number up to one of the other windows, and the woman there gave me my passport, complete with Chinese visa! I was very happy to have it all sorted. This time I was only in the Embassy for ten minutes, including a trip to the toilet!

So now I'm really going to China! Woohoo!

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!

My First Japanese Club

Last night I went to a nightclub in Roppongi (六本木) with Rob and another friend from Leeds called Matt. It was a very interesting experience, as it's only in the last year or so I've been to British clubs and bars (age being the issue, in Britain you have to be 18, and in Japan 20).

We went to the British pub we went to a couple of weeks ago in Kichijoji with Katy first, and then we headed off to Roppongi, and she went home as she had a lot of work to do the next day.

We took the Chuo line (中央線) to Shinjuku, where we changed to the Yamanote loop line (山手線), and changed to the Hibiya subway line (地下鉄日比谷線) at Ebisu. It was about 11.30pm and it was the last train (終電, shuuden) from Ebisu to Hiroo, which is only one stop, so we had to walk the last twenty minutes or so to Roppongi. As with any night out in Tokyo, once the last train has finished, you're stranded until the first train (初電, shoden) starts in the morning, which is usually about 4.30 or 5am. So there was no turning back for us! We didn't want to spend £70 on a taxi home!

In Ebisu station we met a couple of loud Australians, who were nice, but in Japan on a kind of party trip, and weren't really our sort of people. So we escaped being roped into going to a club with them by declining their offer of sharing a taxi.

We were looking for a particular club called 3.2.8 (さんにいっぱ) because Rob had been there with the friend he came to Japan with last year. He said it was really foreigner friendly, and it was easy to meet people and practise Japanese.

We rounded the corner onto Roppongi-doori and there it was! We'd passed it briefly on the Midnight Walk we did through Tokyo last weekend, but it was quite far out from the main area of Roppongi, where most foreigners go. It has to be said that Roppongi is not usually the place I would choose to go, due to the type of people it attracts, but I knew that the club didn't look like the kind of place they would go.

It was around midnight by the time we arrived, and I was already a little bit tired, but I knew I'd wake up once we were inside. We paid the Y2,500 (£16) to get in, which included two drinks, which were around Y800 (£5) each. It was expensive but we weren't going to find anywhere cheaper!

We got drinks and then sat down and watched the people. It was quite a bohemian atmosphere, and the people seemed like nice, relaxed types. The sound system was good, and there was a mix of 90s British rock, modern English dance, and Japanese music too, some of the songs I hadn't heard for years and years! But, in the middle of the evening, the music switched to quite low key reggae covers of pop songs from the 90s, which wasn't at all where it should have gone, it was the peak!

The highlight was definitely when the Japanese version of YMCA came on. Everyone was there doing the dance, and singing along with the Japanese lyrics. All I understood was "若い子" (Young man!)

I thought it was such a difference from British clubs to see the DJ smoking! (But he wasn't meant to see me taking this photo...)

The people there were mainly Japanese, and we were brought into a circle of frantically jumping Japanese guys early on, but they left at about 2am. Later on, quite a large group of Westerners came in and took photos of nearly every corner of the club before having a drink. There were also quite a few business men and women there too, some dancing, some just drinking. The average age was about 30 I think. We were definitely the youngest people there!

By 3.30 we were all quite tired, so we stopped dancing and sat at the bar chatting for a while. Just before 4 we decided to go to a family restaurant I'd seen as we walked from the station, Jonathans, and have a bite to eat. We were all falling asleep, but we got one of the first trains at around 5.30am and retraced our steps home.

The first trains are so strange! They're eeriely quite, and everyone on there is falling asleep, either because they'd been out all night, or have to be up early for something. Not what Tokyo trains should be like!

Needless to say, I slept very well when we got back to the guesthouse!

Midnight Walk

On Friday night I did the craziest thing I've possibly ever done, except for coming to Japan. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it, but I really wanted to try and give it my all.

Rob and I went on an all-night walk through central Tokyo with a group of 51 people from ICU. The route was Odaiba (the man-made island in Tokyo Bay) through the city centre to the ICU campus in the suburbs to the West.

First we met Chihoko and two of her friends in Musashi Sakai (where we saw one of our teachers!) and then went to Odaiba (お台場) by train for dinner.

We ate at a cheap Italian restaurant chain called Sizeriya (サイゼリヤ) and ate lots of energy food!

Then we met up with the rest of the group at about 9.15pm and paid our Y500 towards the breakfast they were providing back at ICU.

We left at 9.45 and started walking towards the bridge to the mainland (well, as mainland as you can get in Japan).

We took a slight detour from the more direct route and went to the bayside, where we could see the centre, including Tokyo Tower, and the bay with Rainbow Bridge. There were even some ships docked up!

We had our first break here, 90 minutes into the walk.

After the twenty minute break we continued up past Tsukishima, where I went for a job interview last winter, towards Tsukiji and Ginza. And we passed the Sumida River, that I used to live on!

We spotted Tokyo Tower again through the buildings.

When we got to Tsukiji (築地), where the famous fish market is, another of Chihoko's friends joined us. It was about midnight at that point.

We walked past Sushi Zanmai, where I ate twice last year! It was such a nostalgic walk! Every turn was another memory!

After Tsukiji, the route led us to Ginza (銀座), an expensive fashionable shopping district in Chuo-ku (中央区), which is the ward I lived in last year!

We walked right past the Kabukiza theatre (歌舞伎座), where I never went to see a traditional Japanese Kabuki play, but I definitely intend to this time!

We then crossed the second busiest pedestrian in the world, Ginza yon-choume (銀座四丁目). The Western-style building is a French department store called Printemps.

Here's a bit of nostalgia for British things!

How cute is this!?

It wouldn't be Japan without the random Shrines dotted around the city.

We then found ourselves right by Tokyo Tower! Well, "found ourselves" makes it sounds like it didn't take a lot of time, but it took over an hour.

We bought some food from a convenience store and sat down in Shiba Park (芝公園), which surrounds Tokyo Tower. It was about 1.30am and just before we sat down for our second break I felt really sick. A wave of tiredness hit me and I had to sit down and recover. I'm really weird and I do feel quite sick when I get tired, but I knew I had to move past it. I ate some onigiri (rice with fish in the middle wrapped in seaweed - they are my staple lunch at the moment) and drank some iced coffee. I realised that, although it was only 20C, it was quite sweaty and hard to breathe. Then I remembered I'd seen the weather forecast earlier that day - it was 98% humidity!

I felt better after eating and getting some caffeine inside me. We headed for Tokyo Tower, stopping at the toilets first.

We passed right past it, and I remembered visiting last year.

Random dog statues beneath it...

Apparently Tokyo Tower is in it's 50th year now!

The next area we walked through was Roppongi, the home of foreigners out for the evening, and many a sleazy bar and club, and non-sleazy ones too of course.

There was a woman dancing to Poker Face by Lady Gaga outside this bar. No regard for the 50 students staring at her in surprise!

The TGI's where I had my birthday dinner with my family last Spring! Awww!!

We passed Roppongi Hills, a huge shopping centre.

The next area we went to was Shibuya (渋谷). I was really desperate for the toilet, so I was really looking forward to the next break! We walked past this train that had closed for the night.

Shibuya was still busy with traffic, even though it was about 3am.

We didn't go to the famous Hachiko exit of Shibuya station, where the world's busiest pedestrian crossing is, but we passed nearby, on the other side of the train station. But of course, because the last train was about 1am, and the first ones start around 5am, the doors were all locked and the metal grates were down.

After the centre of Shibuya, we stopped in a small park, where there was a toilet! I'd never been so relieved to see a bug-infested public toilet!

A few people were wilting, and a couple fell asleep on the ground, but I was on my fifth iced coffee and felt okay. My legs and feet were starting to hurt quite a bit though! Rob and I had done Soul Run practice after Uni so we were tired and aching to begin with!

It was still really fun, despite the tiredness. I was speaking more Japanese than I had done since I arrived, and meeting the new people was nice.

After twenty minutes break, we got up and continued our, now trudging rather than walking, to Shinjuku to the north.

And then we made it! To Shinjuku! The big halfway point! It was about 3.45am and we were all pretty tired, but energised that we'd made it that far.

We sat down outside the station and relaxed for nearly half an hour.

The group leaders explained that the first Chuo line trains were at about 5am, so people could either wait for them to start, or could continue walking at their own pace to ICU. I had been feeling that I couldn't make it past Shinjuku earlier, as I was really tired and we'd already walked about 20km (12.5 miles). But I knew that I wanted to do it all, and have the experience of walking across Tokyo overnight.

Because we went with the Runners' Club, lots of them ran the last half to ICU. I thought that was madness! But one of them said that because running using different muscles to walking, it's actually a relief to run it.

So Rob, Chihoko and her friends, and I all set off at a little past 4am and followed the road out of the city centre, past the Skycraper District, towards the suburbs.

About an hour later the sun started to come up and we started seeing people (people who had slept!!) going to work or school, which I thought was crazy as it was Saturday morning.

It was about 6am, following the same one road to ICU, when we all started to really feel it. I felt sick and sweaty and tired. Some of our group were really flagging and were seriously considering going to the nearest station and giving up. And, honestly, so was I. I felt awful!

We stopped at McDonald's and I had a coffee. Chihoko nearly fell asleep on the table, and the only one of us who seemed to have energy was Rob. And I really think it would have been much more difficult to do it without Rob. He's like a bubbling pot of high spirits.

I thought about it seriously, but probably not that lucidly, and decided that the disappointment in myself if I gave up would be much worse than the physical pain of walking the final 11km (7 miles).

And the others seemed to feel the same. So we set off, not with new-found energy, but with new-found determination.

And it was really difficult. Maybe one of the most difficult things I've ever done! But I realised it was all in the mind. I knew I could do it, and my body would answer to my mind. (I know that sounds really weird, but I think it's the only way I actually managed it.)

We passed this cemetary about 3km along the road after McDonalds.

The cheerful chatter was long gone. There was only the occassional moan of pain or discomfort, or 殺してくれ (please kill me!) After 10 hours walking, we were all just focussed on making our feet move in a forwards direction.

When our guides eventually told us that we only had 3km (1.8 miles) to go, it was literally like music to our ears! We were so close! We continued with new enthusiasm. Which was then drowned by a downpour. I had my umbrella luckily, but Rob just had a thin coat and Chihoko just had a small towel. I shared my umbrella with her and we tried our best.

We were all pretty miserable then. Even Rob looked downcast and in pain. My feet suddenly started to hurt really badly. Just in that last half an hour. It was all I could do to keep them pounding the concrete.

And then, as the rain started to clear, we saw a sign to ICU! We all broke out in huge smiles, and would have ran if that wouldn't have resulted in ambulances being called.

But, curse ICU for being so nice, even once we were on campus, it took over 10 minutes to get to the right building. 10 minutes doesn't sound too long, but after 11 hours, it really is.

Oh, and then the relief! The relief! And the happiness! And the pride! My emotions were all over the place when we walked in and everyone clapped and gave us big bowls of hot soup. I was so happy. It was all worth it, just for that. To be able to say that we'd done it. We'd walked 40km (25 miles) in 11 hours overnight, and seen so much of central Tokyo as we did it. And for me, as a pretty non-sporty, non-physical person, it was a great achievement. I'll be proud of that for the rest of my life.

Rob and I got the train home, and promptly went to bed at about 10am. We woke up at 5pm or so, and went out for a celebratory dinner with Chihoko and her friend in Kichijoji. I couldn't believe we'd done it!

And actually, several days later, I still can't really believe it. But I know I'm happy about it. Really really happy.

They might do it again next year, and Rob's really keen to do it for a second time. I think I'll have to see...