Morning in The Land of The Rising Sun

Santa Claus and a Camouflaged Bunny purveyor of the Original Bionic Drink were our early morning companions. This is definitely not Kansas.

The flight yesterday was long in the way that Christmas Morning taxes the patience of a 3 year old. Sleep came in bouts; rough and with little pretense.

The waters of the Mid Pacific are as seamlessly blue as the center of the Atlantic; sapphire blue with sparse white polka dots farther than Chris Columbus could have imagined. Closer to the islands, things changed. Between glances out the window the ground was coated in cloud banks that looked like wonderfully tracked snow; piled up as it does in mid-march when the sun and snow are at war with each other while snowboarders carve new lines through the endless expanse. It was beautiful and made me even more anticipatory for the imminent landing.

I spent the flight next to a Filipino man that was easily twice my size. We passed the hours talking about snowboarding, pirates, racing motorcycles, $30,000 fish, and snoring on each others shoulders. It was as bizarre as it sounds.

It did not prepare me for this sight:



Dan and I both arose this morning at 4 am local time and decided to make full frontal assault on the gym here in the hotel so as to assuage our calorie-minded consciences for the day of abuse we were planning to subject ourselves to. Dan is pretty spry for an old man. :D

Breakfast was an adventure and everyone got into the act by trying new and more viscera abusing food than the last person, although Kenja won that contest by eating the grilled fish, bones and all.



We are sitting down to practice our presentation, polish our language skills, then set loose of the little town of Tokyo. Heaven help us.