Where are the bullet trains?

Tokyo, Japan

The last few days have been a bit of a blur. I've got that fuzzy vibratey eyes-hot dehydrated lack of sleep thing. I haven't looked in a mirror today, thankfully, but I can feel the failure of the micro-tethers that hold my face up that last millimeter, that seem to appear and start to loosen as one hits thirty, that seem to more and more easily surrender to late nights, alcohol and fluorescent lighting. No amount of breakfast or coffee will rescue me, I can only hope to heal over time. And it could be a while.

I am on the Narita Express train to the airport, a journey that takes 90 minutes (where are the fucking anime bullet trains, Japan?) which should leave me with another 90 minutes to spare; little enough time to make my father's blood in me anxious that should the right unlikely series of unfortunate events occur I could miss my flight, enough time that the blood of experience in me knows I'll be fine and bombasts loudly on the floor of my blood Parliament to Mr. Speaker that the opposition should be ashamed for such blatant partisan fearmongering. Yeah. Wow. Tired. I am.

Not sure I structured that statement in such a way as to mandate a knock on wood but I think I'll do it anyway for good measure. A coalition building gesture.

Once I get to Narita, I have two 5-hour flights to get to Kathmandu (I am rarely able to sleep on a plane, no matter how exhausted), arriving at 10pm, a mystery on the spot visa application process to negotiate (Dad's blood has been wringing its hands over that for days already) and the classic unknown quantity of conveyance to the hostel will surely take me past midnight. But all that is way too far into the future right now.

I spent two days each in Seoul and Tokyo, a travel strategy I do not recommend to anyone. This came about as the result of a change to my itinerary to spend an extra week in Taipei, triggering a cavalcade of convoluted negotiations with my travel agent. I purchased this in hindsight ridiculous batch of tickets in an in hindsight ridiculous misguided effort to leverage economies of scale and save money on all my travel in Asia whilst simultaneously leveraging my (evidently false) wisdom and foresight that told me that when I inevitably wanted to modify my plans it would be best to be championed by an expert with access and guaranteed English to manage the process; in hindsight another travel strategy I do not recommend to anyone. I was a complete dick (who, me?) to my travel agent (sorry Hannah), and indeed to everyone else that I spoke to in her office, and in reality it was all down to my inexperience and ignorant expectations. But I digress...

Where was I? Seoul and Tokyo. Perhaps I will break these down into separate entries...