Japan: great hosts, skiing and consular let downs

Our trip from Saigon to Tokyo began at 3pm with a cab ride from Thomas' apartment to the airport, followed by an uneventful flight to Bangkok. We arrived in Bangkok at about 7 pm and got our luggage, eager to pass the next 7 hrs waiting to check into our next flight. We filled in the time nicely at first: dinner, a movie on the laptop and then we tried to sleep. When 3 am rolled around and we were still awake, we were dying to check in and hopefully find some softer seats, at least some softer than the floor. There weren't any soft seats but a lot of Delta hassle due to fear of terrorism. It would seem Delta is worried about it's planes that aren't flying to American destinations also, so we got several stages of security checks and were not allowed to buy anything at the duty free. It would seem that the hard alcohol could be used to make Molotov cocktails while waiting at the gate. We did take off, eventually, and made it to Tokyo ready for another day of travel.

Tokyo airport is the efficient behemoth that you would expect from the Japanese. We got our luggage, excited to tackle the train system into the city, which is another marvel of efficiency and organization. The size of the public transit system is mind boggling and amazingly always on time! Just incredible!! (Yes that is a double exclamation mark). We found our way and met up with our new hosts in the city, Stephanie and Tsubasa. Steph is one of Patti's long-time best friends and she just got married to Tsubasa.

After rendezvous-ing, and having a vending machine beer (or two, in Colin's case), we were whisked away on a bus headed to the mountain village of Niigata for a weekend of hot springs and skiing. We arrived in Niigata at 10pm and started drinking into the night, despite over 48hrs of travel without sleep. That night, we finally did get some sleep but we missed our first opportunity to ski since we overslept.

We did have a great day in Niigata though. We started the day off with some bathing in the hot springs and then headed into town to the train station and the famous sake wall. In the train station, there is a sake tasting area with over 100 sake's on offer. Each one is dispensed from an efficient Japanese automated system. Pay 500 Yen for five tokens then head to the wall to make your choices. Since there is no English, you have no idea what you are going to get. Tsubasa translate some of the words for us but other than that, we were on our own and getting tipsier by the second.
On day two in the hills, we got fresh snow and hit the hill. We couldn't believe that there was rental gear that fit. I think I got the only pair of ski boots that was over size 10. Also, somehow Colin miraculously fit into Tsubasa's brothers ski/boarding pants. I didn't know there was a Japanese person as big as us Canadians! It would have been great to stay longer but Steph and Tsubasa had work and go to school, respectively, that night we got back to Tokyo.

We arrived back in Tokyo late on Sunday and had to start figuring out how to navigate to the Russian Embassy and apply for visas. In order to get from Beijing to Moscow we need three visas which we have two of already (China and Mongolia), however Russia is still outstanding. Every attempt to contact the Ruskies has failed and they have been generally rude and hostile on the phone. We have read or been told any number of problems could deny us a visa, so we are nervous about getting this one. To add to the problem, we have little time so we can't miss a day or we have to pay large sums for quick processing. It turns out that today was actually a Russian holiday, so the embassy was closed when we arrived after a 1hr trip on the Tokyo transit system. They had no notice on the door and no info about this on the website (thanks). It cost about 20$ in transit to get there so back again tomorrow and an extra 100$ in speedy processing fees.

DAMN THOSE RUSSIANS!

Patti & Colin