All Times Are Local

It’s our mantra for this amazing journey. Has to be, don’t you think? Eight cities, four continents, an estimated 34,000 miles in the air (plus a few train journeys and car rentals), all within 22 days…talk about “If It’s Tuesday This Must Be Belgium”! The egress from Chicago on Sunday morning seemed too easy—so much gear, yet so little luggage!—and resulted in Bobbi and me spending the car ride to O’Hare trying to figure out what we forgot. The airport was quite empty, the heinous holiday travel occurring on either side of the weekend. The men’s room was also mostly empty—no Senators that I could see (Bobbi said I didn’t try hard enough)—so it was off to the gate with a detour to the land of Bloody Marys. Met up with our colleague Lee, who heads up one of the reasons for our adventure, then it was off to First Class (let’s hear it for Bobbi cashing in those air miles!) and 13 hours of pampering and ample carry-on stowage space. Somewhere over Alaska we blinded ourselves with a glance at the glaciers below, then we drank more wine and napped in our flat seat-beds. It’ll be the afternoon when we get to Tokyo (as I write this we’re over the Bearing Sea, having just crossed and the International Date Line, so it’s already tomorrow and I’m already baffled), and I envision a mellow evening that might include a trip to Ginza for sushi.

This is an ambitious trip, and we must give mad props to our clients at Johnson Controls (you should buy their stock---they rock the house. Also the car. Also the workplace), as well as Marianne at Fletcher, Becky at Zacuto, Ross at Ikan, and Crystal at Wolf Camera, all of whom came through in the clutch with essential gear; our guy Ryan who will be driving the Really Really Big bus while we’re on the road; our new guy Alex who’ll be hopping on the Really Really Big bus while we’re away; and Ruthie, Jerry and Judith, who are pulling amazingly awesome house/dog/cat detail.

LATER, THAT SAME DAY (or is it the next day?)... After a 22,000 yen cab from the airport we're now firmly planted in the Hilton Tokyo in the Shinjuku area (our travel book headline: "Shinjuku; shopping and sex on one side, skyscrapers and views on the other"), and it's a very nice room with a very hard bed. I guess this isn't one of the sex hotels. Seems to be a thing throughout Asia--very hard beds. We head off to our locations tomorrow via car (we were going to go by train, but being that Shinjuku station is the busiest in the world--where all those scenes of people being stuffed into trains are shot--all concerned thought a cab would be better and safer for us), but tonight it will be a few sakes and some nearby sushi if we can find it, then off to lala land.