Narita : City of Transient Souls : 02/09/06

Hours to kill, unconquerable queues on all sides, the pervading smell of Starbucks - I must be in Transit Land. Actually the considerable pleasures of the Nikko Hotel, which include actually being able to recline horizontally, eat food on a plate and watch CNN while reading 'Last Drinks', began to pall by 8:00 am this morning so I hightailed it back to Narita Airport, like a cat scooting up the back steps when the fridge door opens. But now that I've emerged from the giant snakes of persons and accompanied baggage, briefly, and having toured the Duty Free esplanade unable to convert thousands of Yen in my head in order to understand whether I can afford to buy anything, my blogging duties have beckoned, although as anyone who knows me well will know that duties is a most inaccurate description. I did have a dream of myself, wireless laptop open to the universe, a citoyenne du monde if ever there was one. But it was not to be; I couldn't find the wireless areas, short of roaming the corridors in a most uncool fashion, holding my laptop aloft like a geiger counter. I have some photographs, largely of yobbish Americans in the Immigration Area last night, wearing clothes that even an Australian traveller would be mortified to appear in. But that will no doubt be only a matter of time, the FTA taking hold with even more frightening speed than global warming. If they can shamelessly pollute our TV ads with images plainly filmed in the Hollywood Hills, they can also Trailer Trash our dress sense better than we can ourselves. So I'm unable to add pictures, yet. In an hour or so my gruelling trek over the top of the Himalayas begins, in the meantime, arrivaderci mes amis, your polyglot companion, friend, relation, even mother.. Barbara

PS Please speak back to me, it's always fun to read Comments, even rude and insulting ones (Sonya - that could be an invitation to you)

THE REST ROOM AT NARITA NIKKO - isn't it exquisite