Today Sam and I decided to go to Tachikawa which is about a 25 minute train ride from here. We went to go drive to the Fussa Gate which is the footpath gate so that we could walk to the train station. Our car wouldn’t start. We had to get a new battery. So several hours later we have a battery. It is now 3:00pm and we go to the Fussa Gate. We walk to the train station with no problems except for the sidewalks being too narrow or non-existant. We buy our tickets from a machine. We already knew what the characters for Tachikawa look like (A shake and 3 fries  as the people at Yokota call it.) and we get on the correct train. Yeah!

We arrive at Tachikawa and get off at the correct stop. We then can’t find the exit. So we look for the green exit sign. We do eventually find an exit. We can go either left or right. We go left and find our way outside to find out we needed to go right to get where we wanted to get to. So we go back through the train station. It felt like playing a video game: Get through the train station as fast as you can without hitting any of the multitude of obstacles (people). Well I made it through. Then we had to find the Bic Camera Building. Well it happened to be the building at the end of the escalator we had to take to get to the street so that was easy. Then we had to go to the 7 and 8 floor… They don’t have elevators. But they do have escalators. So up 7 floors of escalators. We than finally arrived at the biggest craft store I had ever stepped foot in. We I didn’t find any supplies to make Dream Catchers but I did find a kit to make a potted flower out of beads and I decided to try it out. The directions are in Japanese. I will let you know how it turns out.

By this time I feel light headed, dizzy and my legs feel weak. I thought for sure I was about to pass out. When we arrived at the train station we didn’t know which terminals we were suppose to buy our tickets. Then we found the characters for Tachikawa but what did Fussa look like? Well we knew it was 7 stops so we counted and found Fussa (). We bought our tickets. But what train is that? And in which direction? Well we knew we needed to go on the Ome line. Well we finally found a train, actually two trains. We weren’t sure which on to go on so we just got on one. It turned out they had several trains going where we wanted to go, they just left at designated times. We had to wait 12 minuted for out train to leave. Luckily we made it to the train and got a seat before I passed out.

Once we arrived in Fussa Sam then got us lost on the way back to the base and I had to get us unloss by ignoring his protests that the way I said to go was the wrong way. I guess in Japan I have a better direction sense or something. Well actually I couldn’t figure out which direct Tokyo was in but I did know what direct the base was. I thought Tokyo was between us and Mt. Fuji but we are closer to Fuji. I have a feeling I won’t be visiting Tokyo. It’s even more crowded there. I would much rather visit the temples in Kyoto or Nikko. Especially during Cherry Blossom season.

105¥ 18°C/65°F Partically Cloudy