I think someone has moved Japan since I was last here.

Seriously, its taken us such a long time to get here, its the only explanation that I can come up with. I left my house at midday on Monday and I finally got into bed at Midnight in Sapporo on Wednesday. Now even taking into account that Japan is 9 hours ahead of London that is one hell of a long time. I think its about 28 hours of travelling. If that isn’t right, please don’t write and tell me, I’m jet lagged and really couldn’t care less. For those of you who travel business class and sit on 12 hour flights in business class, well if you carry on walking for another 50 metres, you’ll reach economy class where all of us (and hedge fund managers) sit. Its a bit cramped to be honest, and even someone as short as me finds it a bit of a squeeze for that long. However, on this occasion, after the 12 hour flight, we arrived at Osaka airport. The efficiency of the staff there meant that, unlike at Heathrow, we were through immigration and baggage in about 20 minutes. This would normally be great except we had to wait for our next plane to Sapporo for 6 hours.

I have never been so bored in my life. It was Chi’s birthday as well, but no matter how many times we wished him many happy returns, no matter how many free drinks he was given, no matter how many cards he received, we couldn’t get away from the fact that today, his birthday was a crap day. To make matters worse, the orchestra had been split into 2 groups, the other group left after us and arrived before us. There was a secret ballot, so I’m told, so secret in fact that nobody knows who did it…maybe I should start being nice to Sue again.

So when we finally arrived at Sapporo airport we had an hour and a half bus journey to get to the hotel. I could resist sleep no longer and finally drifted off. When we pulled up outside the hotel I could see the other half of the orchestra in the bar opposite eating and drinking and trying really hard not to look smug. They were not successful at all. I pied straight in for some food and beer until I lost the ability to talk which made some people very happy, I collapsed into bed and slept very heavily indeed.

We had a free day, very generous, on Wednesday where I went to a volcano. It hasn’t erupted for a while and indeed didn’t when we went, but it was free to get in so I didn’t complain. It was very nice to walk around after being stuck on public transport for a few days. So once again, I slept well last night, unusually for me in Japan.

Today, we started the musical part of our tour. o be honest, at the rehearsal, the band and Valery sounded and looked a little sleepy. He asked us to save our energy for the concert, which we did. The people I work with never cease to amaze me, we all got changed, Gergiev walked on stage and the orchestra played like its life depended on it. I was only in Romeo in the second half, but the audience demanded an encore. We played the march from 3 oranges, an excellent encore, loud and short!

Tomorrow the tour starts in earnest, we leave early and go hell for leather for the next week,with a concert every day. We have to fly from the North island to the south island. lets hope they haven’t moved that too, I’m sick of travelling and we have only just started…

As a new feature of the blog on this trip I will be uploading photos of fabulous English translations from menus and signs. This was inspired by a department store today which wanted to get us all into the Christmas spirit with a sign outside that said

“Lets punch Xmos”

I have no idea either. This shall be called Lost in Translation. Here is the first.

See you soon

Japanese surrealist menu