Konnichiwa!

It’s my first visit to Japan and I wish it were under different circumstances so I could enjoy it more. I just gave my presentation at the Tokyo Developer Summit and have a couple of hours to kill so I thought I’d let you know what I am up to.

My room at the glorious Royal Park Shiodome is on the 33rd floor and I woke up to a clear, brilliant view of Mount Fuji this morning. Apparently, it’s pretty rare that you can see it and I am to consider myself lucky – which I do.

Room is quite lovely especially the zen-inspired bathroom complete with squirty toilet and seat warmer. Squirty toilets are wonderful and every home should have one. I managed to figure out the international symbol for squirt-water-up-yer-bum but I am not sure what the other symbol represents – or even if I have the bits that might need that kind of washing.

Trip into Tokyo from the airport is a bit intimidating if you don’t know any Japanese (which I don’t) and no-one else knows any English (which they didn’t). It doesn’t help that they don’t use proper letters. Instead they use mysterious squiggles to represent words. How they expected me to make any sense of them, I don’t know. I made it though, and arrived safe at my hotel at 8pm on Monday – I left home at 8am on Sunday. Someone somewhere owes me a day which got stolen from me in mid-sleepless-pacific.

Everyone was very friendly at the airport. A lot of bowing goes on over here. Even the policemen who checked my passport every 12 minutes while I waited for my bus bowed a lot. It’s kinda fun. Especially endearing was the moment when the baggage handlers all lined up and bowed in unison to send my bus safely on its long, long journey into the city.

I was tired and hungry after a long flight so I went out walking to find a bite to eat. Coward that I am, I didn’t get very far. In fact, I only got as far as the Rose and Crown right outside the hotel.