Business Travel Blogs...

There was a complaint in a Blog recently that business travellers don't blog much.

There is a reason for this. Blogs which read like mine are probably rather dull. Arrived, shower, food, drink, bad sleep, meetings, more meetings, more food, lots more drink, bad sleep, hangover - just won't pull in the crowds.

Take today. I'm in Tokyo, apprently. Wandering between here and the office and back it certainly looked like Tokyo, except, it is now 9.30pm - I've been working for the last hour and will soon fall into a probably fitful sleep and awaken in the wee small hours. This is a shame, Tokyo looks like alien cities ought to and it would be nice to have more than 72 hours to explore it. Perhaps for the Worldcon...

I'll write something more sensible in true travel style later, but I have experienced a couple of interesting things...

Last night I landed around 4pm, having been travelling since... well, hard to say. I left Seattle at midnight on Saturday and finally landed in Tokyo around 4pm on Monday - apparently Sunday was only about 9 hours long.

Note to self: if flying, do not have a hangover. Bad, bad, bad...

I managed to find the phone rental shop and the "airport limo" to the hotel. The "limo" was a bus and the journey took almost 2 hours. Fortunately I had been warned about this. I hadn't been warned about the cold. It was freezing, still is.

I got to the hotel about 6.30 and was about to call the office (where they had thoughtfully arranged a meeting for me) when they called to say that the plans had changed and could I be outside the hotel in 30 minutes to go to a client dinner. Addled with sleep deprivation I agreed.

We went for Sushi in a place near what I am told is the world's largest fish market. I'm not normally a Sushi fan, but I was in Japan, I was going to a client dinner. I resolved to put my best chopstick forward.

The restaurant was everything you expect. Polished floors, lockers for your shoes and oddly what felt to me like 9/10 scale furniture. I just didn't fit the table at all. The place was heaving, full of excited patrons, drinking heavily, shouting "com pai" a great deal and smoking like there's no tomorrow. The clients arrived, we got drinks, shouted com pai and got on with the meal.

As I mentioned, I'm not a huge Sushi eater - until last night I could probably count the number of times I've had Sushi on one hand. Understanding this, my hosts were not in the least bit gentle with me. They felt they had to show me what I had been missing.

To my credit I did pretty much everything they threw at me, including the fugu... that's the Blowfish that can kill you if prepared incorrectly. I appear to have survived and actually, it wasn't too bad. We also did a range of Tuna's, some roe based dishes, mackeral, snapper, crab, shrimp and a bunch of other stuff.

I drew the line at fish sperm. I tried, but the texture, colour and smell just defeated me.

So, dazed with jet lag it was back to the hotel where I have the most complicated toilet I have ever ever seen. I'll post a picture tomorrow.

Well, night all. There's some business blogging for you. I hope it helps.

21st Century Bog

Sorry, I've got to post about this. I'll sort out some pictures later, but the loo in my hotel room is just amazing.

There's a Captain Kirk chair style control panel sticking out the side. It's plugged into the mains. When you sit on it, a fan kicks in.

I did have some trouble working out which controls flush it, but it has 2 different bidet settings with controls for the oscillation rate of the water sprays and a control for the water pressure. There are also seat temperature controls.

Sorry but I just had to share. Now I feel like I'm in Japan. ;)