So, when I'm anyway catching up on Tokyo, I can just as well post from when I had to go back to Tokyo and pick up our passports three weeks later. The processing had to be sent back to Sweden and then again back to the Embassy in Tokyo, but I thought it went pretty fast anyway!
This was a pretty crazy day, as Chris had already left to South Korea and to coordinate to get to Tokyo and back over the day wasn't easy to say the least.
With help of friends it worked out in the morning. I had to leave on a Friday, and I had to be at the airport 7:15am. Cassandra leaves the house for the school bus at 6:15am, and at the same time, I had to have the other kids ready too. Said goodbye to Cassandra, double checked 15 times that she took her house key with her, which isn't normally needed as I'm home when she gets home from school.
Then I brought the kids over to our friends house. She is a teacher at Benjamin and Isabella's school, and also has a girl in first grade. She was going to bring my kids with her to school, so that they would be there in time at 8:20am. Her husband, my husband's best golf buddy, was able to bring me to the airport, and I was very happy that this worked out, as I had been worrying how to make it happen. I didn't really want to take the kids out of school and to bring them with us, it would have been way too expensive!
Beautiful weather, flying over the ocean!
Reached mainland Japan.
A lot of farmland to be seen, all brown in the middle of November and with trees in fall colors.
Anyway, it was a pretty stressful day to say the least. I arrived at the airport Narita, Tokyo around 10:30am, and took for granted that I would be able to take the 90 min shuttle bus into Tokyo like I had done on the previous trip. It would still be tight with the time, to make it there, to get the passports and to turn around and grab the next bus back to the airport and still make the flight out in the late afternoon.
BUT, when I arrived at Narita, there were no shuttle buses until after 1pm, which would have been way too late for me to make it back and forth, so I had to quickly figure out another option. Luckily, there was a train to the main train station in Tokyo leaving very soon, so I had to literally sprint to make it to the ticket counter and to find the right platform. A lot of information is in English, but far from all, and my Kanji isn't the best, so I was relieved to see that I was on the right train.
About 45 minutes later, I arrived at Tokyo Train station, which was a beautiful building! A few pictures later, and I got myself a taxi to take me to Rappongi, where the Swedish Embassy was located.
I had been in contact with the lady at the Embassy, that I was supposed to come and pick them up this day, and even if they would close at noon, I would still be able to drop by to pick them up, her knowing that it wasn't the easiest to get there from Okinawa.
When I got to the Embassy, it was closed, and she didn't answer her phone. So frustrating. I at this time had about an hour, before I needed to get the shuttle bus back to the airport, and I was getting pretty stressed. If I would miss the shuttle bus, I wouldn't make it back to the airport in time and I would miss my flight! With kids at home, that wasn't an option!!
With half an hour to spare, she came back from lunch, and let me in. Luckily it didn't take more than a few minutes and a signature later, I was walking back to the ANA Hotel where the shuttle bus was going from.
Walking to the ANA Hotel, I passed this area, where they had four food trucks lined up. I should have taken a picture, but there were all kind of typical Japanese style foods and Bento boxes. That't little boxes with rice and small meat and veggies that are sold cheap and they are very popular here for lunch. Most people working, don't have time to take a long lunch break to sit in a restaurant, so most just pick something up like this and bring back to the office. Or they send a secretary or similar down to the food truck to get the food. Busy people the Japanese, and they don't want to show that they are lazy and therefore hardly take any brakes during the day! When they do take brakes though, it's very common to see them lay and sleep in their cars or on benches. It's actually not frowned upon, as it's a sign that the person is very hard working, to be so tired that they have to have a nap!
Lots of sky scrapers and a very busy harbor in this bay area.
After have visited the second highest building in Japan, we passed by the number one with the bus, even if only seen in the distance. The Tokyo Skytree reached its full height of 634.0 m(2,080 ft) in March 2011, making it the tallest tower in the world, and the second tallest structure in the world after the Buri Khalifa, a mega tall skyscraper in Dubai. It is the tallest structure in the world, standing at 829.8 m (2,722 ft).
Luckily there were no delays, and I arrived at the airport just in time to check in, and we were called to boarding about 20 minutes later. Phew! So relieved to have made the flight back. It's not ideal to fly over the day like this, especially when you have to worry about the kids, getting to school in time, that everything would work out that Cassandra would be back in time to get them from their school.
That nothing would delay my flight, so I would be back in time for bedtime!
Another family friend picked me up from the airport in Naha, after arriving in Okinawa again. I was tired, but glad to be back. I had made dinner for the kids to just warm up the day before, and Cassandra did a great job taking care of them and they were in bed already ofcourse when I got home close to 10pm. Tucked them in, Isabella wasn't sleeping yet, but Ben was.
Cassandra went to bed too, and after calling Chris, I was down for the night as well! So much stress, and so much money!!!, to get the Swedish passports renewed. Time to get the citizenship and get American passports that you can get anywhere for a way cheaper amount of money!
