Tokyo Day 6 – Shinjuku Station, Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden

This turned out to be one of our strangest days in Tokyo. We had decided to visit Mount Fuji so we made an early morning trip down to the JR ticket office at Shinjuku Station to aquire tickets.

The internet seemed to suggest that we could go all the way on the JR Line but when we arrived we discovered this wasn’t the case. We had to take the JR Limited Express train from Shinjuku Station to Otsuki. At Otsuki we would stay on the same train but have to purchase another ticket to reach Kawaguchiko. After all of this discussion we discovered the train was sold out. We decided to reserve tickets for a couple of days later.

Our Backup plan was to take the train to Mount Mitake. We would take the JR Chuo Line to Ome Station then transfer to another JR train to Mitake Station. We found the sign for the JR Chuo Line and headed down to the platform. When we reached the platform the train was already there. My wife got on but before I could get on the doors closed. My wife turned around the discovered that I was still on the platform as the train pulled. She had this horrified look which I wish I could have captured on the camera. The last thing I saw was that she mouthed “stay there”. So I did.

I should point out that when we travel we both have Verizon phones and for $10 per day each we could have access to our phones. Since this is a bit pricy my wife usually purchases a local SIM card for her phone and we use it for navigation. In this case she was using Japan Navitime to map our train travel. My phone was not turned on.

I waited and waited for her to return. After an hour of waiting for her to return I begin to feel like Hachiko the dog at Shibuya Station. I decided to turn my phone on but didn’t have a signal so I went outside the station by the JR Ticket Office. Now what? I couldn’t call my wife because she only had internet access and no phone number. I did remember something about Facebook Messenger but where to find it on my phone? You’ve probably guessed that I don’t use my phone very often. I started poking around and the next thing I know I was on a video chat with her. How that happened I have no idea since I’ve never used video chat. Turns out she was on a train to Ome and couldn’t talk so she said she would get off the train and text me. She did get off of the train and I received a text that she was on her way back to Shinjuku Station and it would take about a half an hour

More photos from the day can can be found on my website.

I decided to wander around the area outside of Shinjuku Station.

I’m not sure if this person was homeless or just taking a morning break. One thing we did not see were people sleeping on the streets and beggars. Apparently Tokyo has a very small homeless problem.

During my walks I kept getting updates, from my wife, on Facebook Messanger. Turns out there were problems on the train line and what she thought would be a half hour turned into over an hour.

We finally met up outside the JR Ticket Office at Shinjuku Station where I got to hear her version of events. It seems that when the train was leaving me behind she first mouthed that I should go to Ome then mouthed stay there. I only saw the latter. She got off at the next station and returned to Shinjuku Station and claimed to have searched the platform for me. Since I have a habit of not standing in one place and wandering off she thought that I had done that. Then she thought that since she had told me to go to Ome that I had gotten on the train to Ome so she got on the next train to Ome. The only thing we could figure out was that when she returned to Shinjuku Station she went to the wrong platform or platform entrance. At any rate we came up with a new plan should we get seperated. It involved me turning on my phone.

We should have probably been a little better organized regarding a separation plan. This is the third time it has happened. In 2015 I got on a gondola and left her behind and this spring we were leaving Ellis Island and they slammed the gate in my face, leaving my wife on the boat and me waiting for the next ferry.

Since we had already wasted more than half the morning we started looking for something to do in the area. We found this wonderful park near the station called Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. The park even had a Chrysanthemum exhibit taking place.

Near a little pond area there were a number of painters at work.

There was an extensive Chrysanthemum exhibit in the park. It is truly impressive what the Japanese can do with Chrysanthemums.

Not only was there an exhibit but there were Chrysanthemums planted throughout the park.

We encountered the ever present hungry fish looking for a handout.

This was a very beautiful park.

We walked through an area with some beautiful backlit trees. Some of the leaves were just starting to turn color.

We found the rose garden at one end of the park. There were still a few roses blooming in mid November.

A little fruther on we ran across a group of school children on an outing. We watched as the started gathering leaves to toss at one another. Soon they turned on their teachers and started chasing them with leaves.

We walked past a section of the park with a bridge and a nice pond.

There was an expansive area of green space which on a weekend would be packed with people.

As I mentioned at the start of the blog this was a rather bazaar day. We noticed a greenhouse along the trail and decided to take a look inside. I took a few photos of some flowers and started following the walkway when I noticed a lime growing on a tree. I realized that I had seen the same lime on our first day in Japan when Carla and Justin took us to a park. It turns out that this was the same park. When we entered the park we turned right instead of left and entered a section of the park we hadn’t visited before. Until we reached the greenhouse we were coming from a different direction so everything looked different.