I finally made it back to my room, giftless and tired, with two hours remaining before our next installment of eating and drinking. I was looking forward to just relaxing in the bath but, when I checked my email… bling-o! blong-o! … American Jeff IM’d me to see how I was getting on.

I told him about my giftlessness and he told me I should go to Akihabara, a mecca for people in search of dolls or miniatures of their favourite anime characters. It’s only four train stops away on the Yamanote line, he said. I can easily make it there and back in two hours, he said. I can do that, I thought.

I walked down to Shinbashi Station and encountered my first problem. The map was all in Kanji:-(

There was a red you-are-here marker and I knew that Akihabara was 4 stops away. But which direction?!

I had a map in my pocket which had both Kanji and Romanji, and, once I found Akihabara on my map, I matched the symbol to the one on the wall. It was like playing an Alternate Reality Game in actual reality!

When I arrived at Akihabara, I had the same problem x10 because all the shops were in tall buildings and the building directories were all in kanji. The first shop I went into had every anime character ever made - except Inuyasha, and the second one had one pathetic little Kagome.

The third store had a single, tiny Inuyasha for ¥1500 - and many , more grown up characters in rather interesting poses. Those characters will probably never make it to America and, even in Japan, modesty required little bits of sticky plastic to cover up the naughty bits.

I searched the remaining seven thousands stores - which is an adventure when you can’t read the signs on the doors - you never know what you are going to find! - but no-one had any Inuyasha.

By now, I was almost late for my dinner meeting so I resolved to go back to the first shop, get the little Kagome and call it a day. But, while I was buying that, I decided to ask about Naruto too.

They had hundreds of Naruto. They even had a big bag containing a variety of characters. The bag didn’t have my favourite character - the rather attractive, well-endowed lady ninja - or Dylan’s favourite, but my Japanese wouldn’t stretch to “Do you have the woman with the blond hair and the big bosoms? Or the dude with the dog called Akamaru”. I thought about making the international symbol for woman with large breasts but I was worried that he’d send me back to one of those other shops and, besides, I was already late for dinner. I decided to quit while I was ahead and set off back to the hotel for my next culinary adventure.
I won’t tell you all the gory details. Suffice it today that it was, once again, marvellous and had some relation to my need for a bucket the next day. The only extraordinary detail - if you consider outstanding Italian food, wine, grappa and being crammed in a little tiny bar that only accepts one coin as ordinary - was the fact that we ended up having more noodles at 3am.

Customer meeting in the morning on the 25th floor of the most incredible office building. We sat in big leather arm chairs in a room also from the pages of Zen Homes and Gardens (Business Edition). There was a courtyard out the window with four or five bonsai trees of various varieties and a combined age of about 1000 years.

My dad used to make bonsai. I wonder what he did with all his trees; if he took the to Spain with him. Made me want to learn how to do it.

Meeting went well. Very formal with lots of rules and protocol that I tried hard to understand and not to violate. I figured out the bit about receiving a business card with both hands and reading every detail and continue holding it with both hands until the conversation is over. Complicated stuff.

The coffee lady put on quite a show, delivering each cup one by one and, kneeling, presenting it carefully with lots of turning and arranging of spoons. I had one of those moments where I was glad no-one asked me a question because I would have had no clue what they were talking about, I was so engrossed in the coffee lady’s art.

I had the rest of the day off so I did 18 laps of Ginza looking for gifts for my childers. I was looking for dolls or miniatures of their favourite anime characters but didn’t find anything appropriate. I did find an excellent fish market though with lots of sushi in various stages of preparation from swimming around in a tank to huge slabs on ice to beautifully presented on a plate.

I also found a noodle stand - one my goals - during the lunchtime rush hour. Again with the performance and the sizzling and bubbling and splashing of sauces. The two very old chefs worked as a team, with one tossing the noodles and ladling giant portions from enormous cauldrons into 6 enormous bowls at a time while the other carefully applied pieces of meat, vegetables and other bits and pieces.

When the noodles were ready I stood, with all the other customers, on a busy sidewalk and tried to echo their impressive guuuurrrgling and scchhhllleeeurrrping sounds. My wife would have been so proud!

[story is a little out of sequence due to international dateline]

Woke up this morning feeling only slightly fragile and, with my three dinners of the night before fully digested, I was ready to make an attempt on the World Breakfast Record. I had miso, nearly raw egg - just the yolk - in a cup of soy sauce, mandarin slices in yoghurt, bacon, sausages, penne w/ white sauce, smoked salmon, pieces of fruit, coffee and my special patented hangover-repelling blend of orange and tomato juice. All while being watched over by Mount Fuji.

After breakfast, we headed off to the Developer Summit for the main feature of the week - my presentation on Continuous Integration.

The room was packed - hundreds of people - and I broke the rule about not making jokes to international audiences. I told them how the presentation was s’posed to be given by Jeff (see picture) and that he always gives the presentation dressed in his super-hero costume. I had asked to borrow his costume but he wouldn’t let me have so I had to wear ordinary clothes. He let me give his presentation but he wouldn’t let me wear his super-hero costume. It’s not fair.

It’s a good way to figure out how many people in the audience speak English. After I told the joke about 10 people laughed and then the rest laughed after the translation. Helped me relax a bit anyway.

Something that didn’t help me relax was the official photographer who was totally in my face with her camera while I was speaking. Close up of my nose and ears. Both sides. Up high. Down low. I just hope I can find a copy to show Tom that I am not making all this up and I really did go to Japan.

The translator was excellent. I enjoyed listening to her more than I enjoyed speaking. I wanted to ask her what the Japanese word for bubbling was but she disappeared before I got a chance. It sounded something like bibbety-bobbety-boo.

It’s kinda nice speaking with a translator actually. You get a handy pause while she translates, to think a little bit about what you are going to say next, instead just rambling inanely like I usually do.

You know without me telling you that we ate well in the evening. Tempura, at a tiny place with room for about 10 people sitting at the bar while Master, as Mirek called him, cooked up the tempura one piece at a time.

You could make a fantastic food movie just by following Jeff and Mirek around for a week. Subtle, traditional decor and lots of significant moments and motions like carefully presenting the cooked tempura just so or applying just the right amount of sauce.

Master looked like an international man of mystery. If James Bond had come and sat down next to us - and he wouldn’t have been out of place - Master would have known how to make his Martini shaken not stirred, and would have saved 007 from a ninja attack using skills he picked up in World War II.

The hostess too - Master’s wife - was straight from central casting. No English. Beautiful kimono. Exquisitely polite.

Early night after the tempura and no hangover the next day! Hooray!

Was planning to go to a customer meeting this morning but, with the huddles masses of my breakfast yearning to break free of their gastric bonds, we decided it was probably best if I skipped it and prepared myself constitutionally for my third and final presentation in the afternoon. It’s a good job too as I don’t think I would’ve survived the taxi ride and I know that their meeting rooms do not come equipped with buckets. 200 year-old bonsai plum trees in full bloom, yes. Buckets, no.

The presentation went well with lots of questions then I jumped in a taxi to make it to the bus terminal with 2 minutes to spare and I settled down for a nice, long bumpy ride to the airport trying my damnedest to keep everything inside where it should be.

The plane was pretty empty so when the cabin attendant invited the dude next to me to move to an empty row, I stretched myself out, set my sleep transducer to ‘coma’, adjusted my meal cart detector to ’sensitive’ and started manufacturing some serious ZZZs, waking every three hours for light sustenance and beverages.

With my ravelled sleeves of care fully knitted - and my lost day safely returned - I landed at SFO in the warm California sun refreshed and ready to face the new day.

It was a great trip - thank you, Yukio, Jeff and Mirek for your kind hospitality!

Arigotou gozai-masu!

I have long been of the opinion that the American culture of tipping is somewhat barbaric but now I have an answer to those who say that tipping encourages good service.

Go spend a week in Tokyo and a week in New York and then tell me which one has the better service.

Even the immigrations and customs people at Narita polite and helpful.

Next time I run into Obama at one of his rallies, I’ll encourage him to issue this as his first Executive Order:

All persons intending to work in a customer-facing role are required to spend six months in Japan for on the job training.

Oh. And they’ll also be required to say -imas after every third word.