Sumimasen. Watashi wa doko desu ka???

No seriously. Where the hell am I??? Wait. Maybe if I back track I can work out where I am.

Yesterday was epic. I’ll recap with the help of photo ops.

7:15am UK time I get up – get ready and head out to Heathrow to meet up with Tim (http://www.tearsinxrayeyes.com/) and Thor.

This is where I parked at Heathrow – just in case I have a ‘dude – wheres my car’ moment, or maybe you just want to steal my car.



Tim noticed Coldplay were on our flight. Tim has (ROCK STAR) played on the same bill as them at a festival in Spain couple of years ago. Tim some how manages to find time to be a rock and roll superstar, and also one of the finest coders you’re likely to meet.

Anyway – I sneaked a really bad pic of that lead singer bloke going through customs when we got to Narita Airport.



But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The flight out was pretty great. I had a whole centre row to myself.



Ahhhhhh… and stretch :) I wish every flight was like this!

The airplane food was the best I’ve ever had. But that was because I picked the bento option. Sugio desu ne.

Why don’t they have this food option when you fly to LA?!?!?! I’ll add that as yet another reason never to go back there ;)

I didn’t sleep on the plane. I never sleep on planes. Instead I watched ‘Sideways’ (very good), 2 minutes of ‘Elektra’ (very bad) and some Asian programs.

One was a program about sushi (a favourite subject of mine) and was one of the most bizarre things I’ve seen. It was presented by some really creepy guy doing shit magic in a darkened room for NO REASON WHAT SO EVER! Demo the sushi looked oishii desu yo.

Then I watched a program that was basically ‘Changing Rooms – Japan’ called ‘C’Mon a my house’. Yes – okay… I thought it was a porno as well at first. But no. Interior design done VERY cheap. Seemed like they were converting spare rooms into Shinto temples for 100 yen. Really, really, really bad stuff.

Then I watched a Chinese game show. It was a bit like Gladiators – but for couples. It went a little like this. Obstacle course over a stretch of water in a park. The (strong, masculine, dominant) male goes first, then helps the (weak, helpless, submissive) woman across.

Invariably the woman (bless her fluffy little head) falls into the water and we get repeated replays with the condescending commentators (I assume) taking the piss out of how weak and feeble they are.

SCARY SHIT! But *cough* compelling viewing.

In between all that I was putting together my last presentation..

So the flight was pretty damn good. I’m not the best flyer in the world – but I didn’t mind this one at all.

FYI: Tim and Thor got about 4-5 hours sleep. I got 0 hours sleep. (mark your score cards now)

We landed at Narita at 9am Japan time (12 hour flight + 8 hour on the time difference).

Customs was quick and the suitcases arrived very quickly. We shambled around the airport for a while. Got a change of clothes, coffee etc. I get cash. I meant to only get £25 out of the machine as a bit of spare cash. I actually got £250. Oppppssss :)

We decided the best way into Tokyo was the train.

Be careful. Your pussy might get hurt when you are on the train…



CHIKAN!!!!

We headed off to meet our Japan contact (DC) in the Hyatt in Roppongii Hills.

Roppongii Hills is REALLY nice. The station is amazing and is has this very cool spider statue outside.



The Hyatt is also really nice, combining a hotel – shopping – and eating.



We also met up with Coldplay again there. Had lunch with DC (Italian food – grrrrrrrr gimmie insane Japanese food now!!!) and walked over to XXXXX.



I’m not going to talk about why we were there – or what we were doing at any of these meetings btw. That would be bad bananas.

After XXXXXX we headed off to Meguro to meet up with XXXXXX. XXXXXX are a similar business to us, and this was really a meet and great. They were all really nice guys (and girl), and took us to dinner.

I mean no offence when I say. ITALIAN FOOD AGAIN!!! NOOOOOOO GIVE ME CRAZY JAPANESE FOOD NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Kore wa Pam-Chan desu.

They made us feel very welcome. It would have been nice to have spent more time with them but we had to get on the Shinkansen (Bullet train) to Osaka for a 9am meeting.

So 9:30pm Japan time we’re going 100s of MPH (probably) on a 2 and a half hour trip to Osaka.

I decided to buy a random drink for the train…



…which ended up being the same drink we had been served in all our meetings – and I’m not a fan.

So NO – we haven’t actually seen a hotel yet. NO - I haven’t had a minute of sleep. YES – we have been dragging our luggage with us all this time (I bet Coldplay didn’t have to). Baka-Tim didn’t bring a suitcase with wheels, so he has had to carry his bag round half of Tokyo and Osaka’s subway systems. CRAZY ROCK STAR!!!

We got into Osaka about midnight Japan time. As I got of the train I noticed a woman face down on the train platform. I thought she was dead. A couple people were stood over her. After about 10 seconds she moved. I guess she was okay – but you got to ask yourself if you should be working THAT hard!!!

Anyway, 10 minutes on the subway and we’re at our hotel finally. We check in, and some idiot has the idea to go for a ‘night cap’. Okay – it was me.

We dropped our stuff in the rooms and went out into Osaka at about12:20am.

This was a bad move on so many levels. The streets were full of ‘bladded’ salary men. It was something worth seeing, but something that was kinda creepy also. All we wanted was a beer. But all the bars we passed had women on the door that looked ‘expensive’. Some were saying goodbye to the drunken businessmen who’d paid for their company that night. Others were looking for new business.

We wondered around for about 40 minutes. Didn’t get a drink. Did get very lost. Got back to the hotel about 1am and went back to our rooms.

Japanese hotel rooms are funny. I’m not very tall, but I could touch both walls on the longest width of the bathroom.



It was also my first introduction to a proper Japanese toilet seat.



I got ready for the water spurt…



…then it came…



A strangely sexual experience!!!

Okay - I was starting to loose it after being up for 34 hours (or whatever) solid.



I decided to put on the Japanese dressing gown, which made me feel really sexy…



…and then I lost it a bit more.



Watched a bit of news to see if the UK had exploded again. Went to sleep. About 1:30am.

Woke up 3am. Felt fine – but decided to get some more sleep.

Woke up proper like at 6:45am. Took in the view…





Had a much needed shower and a shave…



…and met up with the other guys for breakfast at 7:30am.

Breakfast was oishii. I had lots of weird things. It was very nice.

8:15am we set off to find XXXXXX.

Osaka’s main subway station is roughly the same size as London and after walking for 3 days we got to our train (yes – we are carrying our luggage again). We got to the stop near XXXXX and then spent 30 minutes walking around asking every other person we met if they knew where the street was. Not fun. But we found it.

10:40am we made a mad dash via crazy taxi to the Shinkansen train station.



As I write this I’m halfway between Osaka and Tokyo…





…so if you don’t mind – I’d like to have my Bento box now :)




Nic.

P.S. My Beckham advertised product poster count is only at 2 right now.



I’ll keep my eye out for more. And here's a very Kubrickesque Vending machine room from my Osaka hotel...



They should call this the 'Serve-er Room'.

posted by Nic @ 7:34 AM 2 comments