When I see a person wearing a white mask, I think they are protecting themselves. Turns out it's the other way around in Japan. Apparently, the Japanese are so polite that wearing the mask protects others from their germs. Read more about it on the BBC and make your own decision.

I've seen at least half a dozen women and men wearing white surgical masks. It can't be from pollution, we are inside a climate controlled building. Do the Japanese suffer from bacillophobia?

On the plane we were given quarantine forms to fill out. After disembarking from the plane, as you approach immigration, there are signs for quarantine and health officers all over the place.

Monika suggested that it had something to do with the terrorist attack from several years ago where nerve gas was released into the Toyko subway system.

It's 30 F in Chicago. I'm wearing sandals and a short sleeve shirt. I can't bear the thought of trying to dig my fleece and some shoes out of the baggage. We landed 30 minutes ahead of schedule and breezed though customs. Outside at the taxi stand for International Terminal 5, it looks like a post-apocalypse movie where the Earth has been depopulated. There were no cars or taxis on the access road for 10 minutes when we got out here.

In the queue in front of us a small family: father, mother, young child have a small mound of bags. The first cab to pull up insists that he can't take them because they have too many bags. They will need to wait for a mini-van. The father tells the driver that it will fit. This quickly escalates into a shouting match. Behind me a woman says, "Just like Bangkok". She and her husband have just come from Thailand, Phuket and Chiang Mai, and have had similar problems with the taxi drivers there.

In the meantime, the father and the taxi driver are still shouting at each other. The taxi stand attendant finally gets them to quiet down, and then looks at me. "Ok. You can take the cab."

Monika and I have even more bags than the family. "I'll wait," I reply. Within 30 seconds another cab zooms down the ramp. Snatches up us and our hillock of luggage and we're off. The highway is almost as empty as the airport. It must have been a rough night in Chicago.

There was a camera mounted under the nose of the All Nippon Air plane that we took from Bangkok to Tokyo. They fed the video stream to the TV monitors that they use for movies. Take off was like a video game. It was night so all I could see on the screen was the lights from the runway. With takeoff the lights started to speed by until we lifted off. It was dark then and Monika and I were a bit disappointed until we flew over a highway and realized that the camera was still on. Very nice. It would be great to watch that feed during the day over just about any part of the world, especially Alaska when we fly home.

Happy New Year.

We are currently in the departure lounge in Narita Airport in Japan. The airport is 1 hour outside of Tokyo by train. We arrived at Narita from Bangkok at 7:00 am. Our initial plan and Monika's intent when she booked the tickets was that the 8 hours between our arrival and our departure at 3:10 pm would give us enough time, to pop into Tokyo for a quick look around. Part of this plan was to use the day\shower rooms that they have in the airport. Things didn't work out like we planned.

We arrived in Terminal 2. The showers are in Terminal 1. To get there we had to pass through customs and immigration. U.S. citizens are granted an on the spot 90 day visa when entering Japan. After a short, convenient shuttle bus ride to terminal 1, we discovered that the showers are on the other side of the immigration counters. Once you pass through immigration on your way out of the country, you cannot get back out. So we had a choice, take it easy, rest, eat, shower or jump on the train and hope we can get back to the airport in time for our flight while we are hungry, dirty, and probably stressed out...

... Monika just got back from the shower and she insists that the shower room is really nice. It's like a 5 star hotel. She is urging me to go see it. Since she needs to snuggle up to me on the plane to get comfortable, I think she has an ulterior motive, but I'll play along.

O.K. The shower was nice, but nothing to write home about ... damn too late. It was small, but just big enough not to feel cramped. The shower had the whole: 1 piece of beige plastic thing going on. Excellent water pressure though. When I turned the water on high, the removeable showerhead popped out of it's socket. It took a couple of tires for me the catch it.
Almost time for the flight and we are down to our last 100Yen. Time to sign off.

The connection at the INT Internet Kiosk in the Departure Lounge at the Narita Airport in Japan, is the fastest internet connection I have ever seen in my life. It is so fast, II jump every time the page pops onto my screen. You might think that I'm exaggerating because of the month of painfully slow internet connectivity, but I'm not kidding. It's fast. I think I might move in here. Excellent showers, fast internet, what else do I need?

This shot is from our day of sightseeing. Rani-Ki-Vav is an extremely well preserved step-well in Patan. It's hard to find, but worth seeing.