Oh yeah… I’m your huckleberry.

It would seem that Japan still had one more adventure in store for me on my final day here. One the way, the bus driver made an announcement that we would be needing to take a detour because of a big accident on the expressway. This required him to drive some “back” roads through the idyllic, picturesque Chiba countryside. I snapped some photos from the bus, but don’t know how they came out. I think that I’ll just wait to post them all to my Flickr photostream after I get home. Right now, I think I’d prefer to drink my Pocari Sweat and relax while waiting for my flight.

With that, I’m signing off for now to enjoy my Almond Choco and relax, pending the boarding of my flight. See y’all on the other side of the pond.

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* The T.S.A. should be required to do their first 6 months on duty here, being trained by the staff at Narita. I think it took me a grand total of 18 seconds to pass through security. Everyone was polite and respectful to a fault. And not one single loud-mouthed jackass could be heard yelling at the herd of bread-dead traveling cattle to put their liquids in a baggie, take out their laptops, throw out bottles of water, or make sure their firearms are unloaded. These things are posted on signs… which the Japanese, apparently, read.

All my bags are packed
I’m ready to go
I’m standin’ here in Tokyo
I hate to wake you up to say “I’m heading to Narita and should be home relatively soooooooon…”

[ahem] Sorry.

Anyhoo, I’ve been scouring the room to make sure I don’t leave anything behind, when what should I find in the desk drawer? A New Testament and Buddha Book sitting quietly side-by-side.

Is this the Japanese equivalent of “Praise Buddha and pass the katana?”

Off to take a shower, finalize packing, and drag my sleepy, sore, exhausted butt to Narita airport. See y’all soon.

Suffice it to say that I spoke more Japanese in the last 3 hours than I have in the last 3 years. I’m finding the language very difficult to speak, which is rather frustrating. Words don’t come to mind as easily as they used to… I can’t seem to pronounce things… I trip over my own tongue. Yet, one of my conversational partners was nice enough to swear that if he had his eyes covered, he’d think I was a native Japanese.

Note: The Japanese excel at over-complimenting.

The boss made the new guy give a speech to everyone in English. (He doesn’t speak English.) It was so comical as to border on the painful. After a few seconds, the boss feigned snoring and everyone cracked up. That didn’t stop the new guy who, by then, had sufficiently filled his tank with his “gasoline,” as he put it. (In other words, he was sloshed.)

I spent several hours talking about the Japanese language, history, entertainment, contemporary culture, rural dialects, and various other random topics. I even dropped into Russian a few times with one of the guys.

I think the Tokyo office now has a better idea of who I am and what I can do. Perhaps that will give them a more solid idea of how exactly they can use me. At any rate, I made several friends I intend to keep up with. I hope to be back before long… maybe even in September. Next time, I plan to try and spend more time with some of the folks I met this time. If nothing else, it will help revitalize my Japanese.

The long-anticipated meeting with Sony has been accomplished. It took place at SCEI (Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc.), home of the Playstation and PSP.

The inside of the ground floor lobby was amazing. It looked like one might expect Kato Kaelin’s guest house to look if he were crashing with the Architect of the Matrix. Displayed everywhere were samples of different PSPs, PS3s, with (ostensibly) upcoming games playing everywhere. Unfortunately, photography was forbidden, or I’d have taken shots to show all of you.

This was the second time in two weeks I’ve been able to meet with the same folks. The entire meeting lasted only a few minutes, and was largely designed as a pressing of the flesh. At least I can now say that a Sony VP has my business card

Up next is a dinner, but I may skip out early.

As you can probably see, typhoon #4 appears to still be on track. Thankfully, it looks like its effects will largely miss Honshu, pelting us only with wind and rain. If Ol’ #4 doesn’t hammer the mainland too badly, my flight should still be good-to-go for tomorrow. At any rate, the rain and high winds in Tokyo have largely waned… for now.

For those (now 4) readers who are still ramen virgins, I’ll lay down some knowledge flakes on you: if you’re not sweating profusely and asking for a bucket to catch the unending stream of snot issuing forth from you schnozz, it wasn’t really very good ramen.

This was good ramen.

See the big dotted circle on top? I’m about 3cm to the left of where that will be when I’m scheduled to fly out of Tokyo Narita tomorrow.

I’ll keep you posted.

Being in Tokyo again has been blur… a blur of trains, pictures, blisters, elation, exhaustion, cute little girls in their sailor outfits, delicious food, loneliness, language, and shopping bordering on the hedonistic. But like all marathon sex sessions, there comes a time when it just has to stop.

The Sony meeting, as it turns out, is supposed to be today at around 6pm. This is going to be a long day, I imagine. I likely won’t have time (or energy) to do any more shopping after work, but if I do, I’ll try to go for that one last spurt. There are gifts I still haven’t bought, but frankly… I just don’t physically have the energy left in me to go looking for anything. I will endeavor to do so, though.

I return to the U.S. with a new drive to learn Japanese.