Japan!!!!

Man do I love flying. I can't wait to file into a queue and submit myself to the lot of retards who work for a government agency that has the employee turnover frequency of Taco Bell.

Getting to Japan was a two day process for all of us. On Thursday, we set out from Puerto Rico to San Francisco via Washington Dulles. That was an 11 hour ordeal. We stayed at the SF Airport Crowne Plaza for a night and got up to take the 10 hour flight to Tokyo. Usually I would have a plan to turn my hours around before I got to Japan but it was just pointless with this itinerary.

When we leveled off at 38,000 ft. and the seatbelt sign went off, I got up to purchase two bottles of Jack before they could even pull the carts out. I found a willing flight attendant and got back to my seat. I looked across the plane to see Bugsy (my fellow audio engineer) and he smiled and gave me the thumbs up. I took the opportunity to make a production of me flashing an Ambien and slamming it down with the two Jack Daniels bottles. He was cracking up.

It took about an hour for me to feel it but when it hit, I was out. Unfortunately I woke up about four hours later and that was that. I couldn't sleep anymore so I snuck up to business class to an open seat next to Teri our asst. tour manager. She was cracking up and order us a couple bottles of sake. I enjoyed the nearly prone seating for about an hour before the Purser caught on and told me I was a very bad man. I spent the last four hours in coach.

I could have upgraded to business class for 60,000 miles but that's another trip somewhere in the world. Forget it. Luckily I have some sort of status with my "Economy Plus" seating. I think I get six inches out of the deal.

So we landed in Tokyo around 2pm and immediately had a production meeting at the one of the hotel restaurants. We met all of our Japanese crew and discussed the tour. Everyone was very nice and knowledgeable. Our stomachs were growling and we were all itching to get some food. Rick, our Production Manager, led us off to a nearby street with plenty of food and drink. We eventually found a small noodle house that suited our purpose. We walked in and sat down and started pointing at pictures. Not a single person there spoke English. Oh well, kindergarten was good for something.

We eventually found out that we had to pay first at a machine that spit out our order on a piece of paper. That was given to the attendant who promptly made our food. Fortunately there was a couple that showed us what was going on or we might have sat there pointing for hours.

After dinner we all headed out to an English pub for some Guinness. Right now you might be saying that we might as well have eaten at McDonalds (which we did pass along the way) but our mission was not to start the wonderful experience of Japan. Our mission was to have a few pints from a place where we could communicate easily and get back to the hotel and crash. It was 5am Pacific.

As I walked into my hotel room, my phone rang. I thought it would be a reminder call that we had to be in the lobby at 10am the next morning. When I picked up the phone though, I heard a pleasing baritone voice.

"Pleezuh standuh-by for call from Mr. Kenichi Amagasaki"

Perfect timing!!!

For those of you who don't know, Kenichi (Ken) is my Japanese brother. He was an exchange student my family had for a year back in 1986. He has come back to visit us in the States several times and our family even met his parents in Hawaii about 7 years ago.

Ken and I caught up for a bit and then he told me he could meet me the next morning in the lobby before we took off to Hiroshima. I hadn't expected to be able to see him until next week when we play Tokyo. I was very excited for him to send me off. Shortly after, it was 10pm and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I set my alarm for 9am hoping to bang out a long nights sleep.

3am - my eyes open. They don't close again. I watched some Japanese TV, some CNN, and some BBC. Nothing worked. I got out my book and read it for about an hour. Nothing.

About 5am, I quit reading and decided to attempt to pass out to the TV again. I was flipping around the 11 channels of horrible TV when I stumbled on the third round of the Masters!! Sweet! Surely the soothing voices of the golf commentators would lull me into a new slumber!

Well, I've got news for you. Japanese golf commentators are not like Johnny Miller and David Faraday. There are no low monotone voices from the Japanese broadcast. Instead, it is filled with bounding exclamations and endless grunting of agreement.

"MMMMMMMM!! Hai! Hai!!"

So much for the lullaby. I stayed up until 8am watching golf. At least I got to see one round of the Masters this year. Tiger had a 4 under round but it doesn't look like it will be enough this year.

I think I finally fell asleep somewhere around 8am. My alarm woke me up an hour later.

When I got down to the lobby, Ken was there waiting!! It was great to see him. He looks great and hasn't aged a day. We shot the shit for 20 min. or so before I had to get to the airport and fly to Hiroshima. May I say that flying in Japan is quite a different experience than the US. If only I flew in Japan all the time...

It was a bit cloudy in Hiroshima as my flight approached that afternoon. I felt a fascinated, solemn discomfort staring out my window wondering if I was seeing the same view that a B-29 on August 6, 1945 saw. It's fucking weird. All you can do is gaze and think.

We were bussed to the hotel from the airport and settled into our rooms for about 20 min and then met up downstairs to venture out. First stop? The A-bomb Dome.

Rob, Merrit, Ralph, Rick and I walked about 5 min. to the so-called A-bomb Dome. This building was originally built in 1915 by a Czech architect as a commerce house. It was a large building with a gorgeous green dome on top that had become a proud Hiroshima landmark. It was called the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall.

At 8:15am on that day in 1945, The Bomb detonated about 600 meters nearly directly above this building. Everyone inside was vaporized instantly. But because it was just below the explosion, it was the only building to avoid the extending shockwave and it's walls and dome didn't completely fall.

Initially there was a huge movement to do away with any reminders of that day. Throughout the years following the blast, almost all of the other structures of Hiroshima were replaced. Eventually the "A-bomb Dome" as it became to be known, gained support to be a monument for peace and the city preserved it to always look just as it did the day the Bomb dropped.

It is too difficult to describe what I felt as I stood there and looked at the skeletal remains of the symbol of human destructive power. If every single head of state would be required to stand there in the shadow of that structure upon the first day of taking office, things might be a little different on this planet.

Complete world peace may never be a feasibly attainable goal but at least we could all agree to do away with complete mutual destruction. Perhaps that is what was accomplished those days in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the sacrifice of millions.

The rest of the day was spent shopping and wondering about the city. It is now a clean, beautiful bustling city with quite the downtown marketplace. I am very surprised at the happenin' fashions of the local young people. Japan is full of incredibly pleasant and polite people. Hiroshima exemplifies this at every turn. If you ever make it all the way to Japan, I would definitely not miss it.

I'm off to bed. We've got our first show tomorrow. Tuesday we will head to Osaka by bullet train. A very cool coincidence has happened on this tour. The Foo Fighters are playing Osaka for two nights, the second being on our day off. So I called up my buddies on their crew and asked if we could come to the show. As Huey and the guys are such big fans, we've all been invited to go see the show. It should be bad ass. I haven't seen them since I toured with them two years ago. I'm really looking forward to it.

That's it for now!!! I'll let you know how the first day goes.........