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    It took an hour / Maybe a day

    This morning’s trip in proved yet again my Narita Airport Law: k = (time before Narita Express departure that I get a cab)(amount of traffic). I ended up on the platform a half-hour early, playing my usual game of “how long can I go without reading?” in order to avoid exhausting my books and magazines before the twelve-hour flight even begins. It’s a shame Joanne Jacobs’s prose is so brisk and readable; I have this feeling I’ll be done with her book before we’re over Alaska.

    One of the MILDLY ANNOYING things about this trip, I discovered when packing last night, is that I had to prepare for two completely different environments. My meeting is in the Caribbean, and our parent company is super-casual. I’ll probably be doing most of my business in ripped jeans and a T-shirt–if not, indeed, by the pool in a swimsuit, dripping. Back at home, where it’s winter, is where (paradoxically enough) I’ve been invited to a few dinners I have to dress for. I generally like to travel light. Oh, well. At least this time I didn’t leave my entire bag of o-miyage on the floor of my living room the way I did a few years ago. It was fun trying to figure out what to do with fifteen envelopes of green tea when I got back to Tokyo.

    Speaking of conserving things, this will be the first time I find out whether my iPod battery is as short-lived as they legendarily are. At least if it lasts four or five hours it’ll be fine for the second leg of my trip. I’ll be landing at JFK on Tuesday, spending the night in Murray Hill with my old roommate, then taking off for the Dominican Republic at 6:00 the next morning. If you’re going to scramble you’re bio-clock, don’t be doing it halfway, I say.

    See everyone later in the week.

    2 Responses to “It took an hour / Maybe a day”

    1. Gaijin Biker says:

      You see, it can’t just be all reading material. Get yourself a portable DVD player w/extra batteries, a complete season of Simpsons, Lost, Arrested Development, 24, Sopranos, or some other favorite show, and a pair of Bose noise cancelling headphones. The flight will be over before you know it.

    2. Sean Kinsell says:

      I have a portable DVD player, and I have DVDs I haven’t watched. I generally have the same problem I have with books, though: I can sit and read all day when I feel like it. The minute you strap me into an overgrown Coke can and tell me I can’t do anything but read, I start wanting to go for a run. I think I just have a contrary nature.

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