Los Angeles to Tokyo

We left Las Vegas on Thursday, once again riding the ‘minimum wage wagon’ back to LA (it costs £18 to travel 6 hours through the desert and they play Spanish-dubbed versions of art-house films such as ‘Rush Hour 2’ and ‘Rush Hour 3’; the drivers dress like scarface and just frown whenever I ask them questions).

When we arrived in LA Claire decided not to take a taxi but to set off into downtown LA (including Skid Row itself) in a heavy rainstorm. After passing a couple of slightly-louder-than-normal locals on a deserted sidewalk I was frantically looking round for a cab, but in the end we asked around, yomped hither and thither and found a metro station which took us to Union Station. I imagined the bus station to be like Hanley on acid, but it was clean as a whistle and soon we were on the LAX express coach. We stayed at a very cute, very American motel for the night, grabbing a bite to eat at a nearby Denny’s. Denny’s is a restaurant chain apparently required by law to fill all its patrons with as much sugar, corn syrup and pig salt as physically possible. I was recovering from food poisoning and hadn’t eaten anything for the whole of Las Vegas (except for two cups of plain oatmeal, bless you Starbucks), so Claire said I had to pick something and have a good go at it. She picked the healthiest item on the menu: chicken with mashed potatoes and vegetables. It was lovely, all sprinkled with sugar and cheese and more corn syrup. It was strange to see her face plumping as she ate. I nibbled a few tortillas and we headed off to bed.

On Saturday morning we remembered that we were flying to Japan but hadn’t booked anywhere to stay. We toyed with the idea of landing at 6pm and going straight into Tokyo, but wisely opted to stay in a nice airport hotel near Narita instead.

The flight to Japan was brilliant. We were taken by Singapore airlines, whose hosts and hostesses are the most polite, preened and beautiful people ever. They fed and watered us like geese in advent, and even dished out Hershey bars in between the mid-meal snacks. We landed in Japan at around 5pm, and jumped on the airport shuttle bus to our hotel. I insisted that we stay up a while to sort out our body clocks, but we both went a bit strange, watching Japanese television, drinking green tea and not speaking a word. Claire literally slept from 8pm through to 9am (when I woke her by prodding her, grimacing, face twisted with jealously as I’d woken at 3am and had been working to pass the time.)

- Tom