A glimpse of Tokyo

I'm at a layover in Tokyo and have officially arrived on my first trip to Asia! I typically don't count a visit as a valid trip unless I stay at least one night, but people, I'm in TOKYO! This is the coolest, and dammit, it counts even if it's for a few hours and there's not really a skyscraper in sight.

The airport rocks with oodles of couture stores. And, the toilets are entertaining since they feature hilarious sound effects you can select for white noise.

As most of you know, my final destination is Bangkok, and I should arrive at my hotel around midnight tonight, which is actually noon Eastern Nov. 13 because of the time difference. My flight outta Cleveland left at 7:30 a.m. and my total flying time to Bangkok is 23 hours with two layovers in Newark and Toyko. The flight to Tokyo was 14 hours and the flight to Bangkok is seven. Crazy. Prior to this trip, my longest flight was 10 hours coming home from Italy in 2001.

So, I've been awake for about 22 hours now thanks to Starbucks. On the flight to Toyko, I read about a dozen magazines, a book: The Tipping Point, watched Wall-E, ignored Pee Wee's Playhouse and sucked at video poker and blackjack on my personal Continental TV screen.

So, why I'm going to Bangkok...My friend Mary, who I used to work with at my previous job, was supposed to spend two months here for work and invited me to visit her. I started making travel arrangements because I thought it would be an incredible opportunity, and then her work trip got canceled. She convinced me we should still go, just both as tourists, and after a few days of considering it, I booked my travel.

Our trip is eight days, but we lose three of those days to air travel, so we really have five days to explore. Plenty to do and experience, and I can't wait!.