Andy and Amanda in America: May 2007

With time ticking away we visited the American Embassy in Osaka to apply for our visas. The price of a package deal (shinkansen tickets plus 2 nights in a hotel) is actually cheaper than just buying the train tickets so we decided to stay over. Having visited Osaka just a couple of weeks before we decided to revisit Kyoto.

After a 2 and a half hour shinkansen ride we arrived at our hotel ready to sleep. The hotel lobby was shabby (the pattern on the carpet was worn off) but the rooms were even shabbier! The semi-double bed was in fact just a single bed with 2 pillows and the bathroom was so small that your knees touched the door. The bathroom did have an ashtray fitted to the bathroom wall though so that you could poo and smoke at the same time!

That night we didn't sleep! The room was too hot yet the air-con sounded like a bear growling and the bed was way too small (we ended up sleeping top and tail).Oh and you could hear everything the people in the other rooms did! Still we were up at 6:15 and out of the hotel by 7:30.

We arrived at the embassy at 8:00 and found that even though we were half an hour early that about 20 other people were even earlier than us! Getting into the embassy took time as one guard made us sit on a bench in the street whilst he touch our clothes with a white piece of cloth. Then we had to queue in three lines outside the building before going through airport type security. Once inside we had to queue to speak to an advisor who then told us to go for an interview on a different floor. We had been dreading the interview! We had read that they would try and trick us and get us to incriminate ourselves. In fact we were asked how long we had been in Japan and what we would do in America!

After that we decided to go and explore a wet Kyoto. The first stop was Kiyomizudera Temple. The temple is applying to become one of the 'new' seven wonders of the world.