I'm in the Northwest Airlines lounge in the Tokyo airport (Narita) right now on one the Macs they have arrayed around the room for travellers to use, waiting for my flight to Beijing. (I'm going for meetings with my new team). I just spent the last few hours exploring the airport. For as many times as I've been here, I really haven't walked around much. Since I was just on my butt for the past nine or so hours, I figured a walk would be good.

I turned out to be a productive walk. I found a neat origami museum and, more important, a duty free shop with a tasting bar! (The Fa So La Liquor and Tobacco shop in the south wing.) I tried a few nice Japanese whiskies (the Suntory Hibiki 21 year was especially good) poured by a Chinese lady who was happy to find a Chinese person who knew anything about whisky. It seems there are a lot of Chinese passengers transiting through here and tons of Chinese-speaking store attendants -- definitely a change from a few years ago.

I also had a good katsu curry (fried pork chops in this sort of sweet, gloppy Japanese curry with rice -- yum!) in a food court. I've been dreaming about katsu curry for sometime and was a little upset that I didn't get any this summer when we were on vacation here, so it was a nice find.

I had forgotten, however, that the Japanese like the room temperature about 3 degrees warmer and 50% more humid. I'm steaming to death. The cold Asahi Dry beer from my favorite beer pouring machine (it pours a beer with a perfect head) is not keeping back the heat, but I'll keep trying.

Anyway, two more hours until my flight...