Monday 5th November 2001

Yet again I'm sat on board a flight to Europe, instead of at home with my wife. Yuki is very understanding about the needs of my job, and after all, if I didn't travel, we'd never have met! Thankfully though, from my point of view, she doesn't look forward to me being away, especially as a trip to Europe usually means a whole week. After recent discussions at work about my future after Japan, it seems I'll be continuing to manage my team from the UK. It didn't occur to me straight away, but that is actually very good news, because it will inevitably involve occasional trips back to Tokyo.

All around me are Japanese doing the excercises being shown on screen. It's strange, usually people just ignore it, knowing the airlines have only introduced it to prevent deep vein thrombosis lawsuits. They are not strictly all around me, there are still few enough people risking taking to the air for me to have the four middle seats to myself. These seats weren't allocated to me, I moved to them. I moved just a couple of rows before take-off, but the stewardess asked me to wait until we were in the air before moving. She said the seating had been carefully allocated to balance the plane. How safe is this plane? For example: If the food is stored at the front, and the toilets are at the back, does that mean we won't be able to land? Think about it!

Tuesday 6th November 2001

When I boarded the SAS plane to fly to Denmark, the captain saw my shirt (a classic Juventus football jersey), and asked what the flag was on the crest. I had a little banter about it being a Juventus shirt, and that I actually supported Arsenal (which didn't seem to interest him much). It was only later that I twigged that he was probably (oh me of little faith) asking indirectly if I came from a muslim country! I still have no objections, as it is better to be safe than sorry.

Tuesday 13th November 2001

I'm on a train trying to get home from work. It's half empty, but some people are sticking with it. There's obviously some problem, but as I don't understand the announcements, I have no idea whether to get off or wait it out! I'm getting off.

I decided to try the bus. It didn't look like moving either, so I got a burger. While I was being served the bus pulled away! I've now just boarded a subway train. It doesn't go exactly where I want it to, but via a quick beer with Greg in the Hobgoblin, it won't be a complete disaster!

Friday 23rd November 2001

Today is the Labor Thanksgiving Day holiday. We took advantage of this by having a party to welcome new members to our team at work. I organised an izakaya with all you can drink for two hours and plenty of food.

After that we went on to a karaoke club and continued to drink all we could (the boss was paying)! It's amazing how the people you'd least expect turn out to be really good singers, and hence really keen on karaoke too. However that gives Juha, one of my managers, no excuse for singing my one and only OK sounding song before me!