'I'm beginning to see a point of light on the horizon'

The flight to Japan is monstrously long, but one good thing is that you really get to appreciate just how big a place the world is. Except for a couple of hours over the English Channel and the Sea of Japan, there is land beneath you the whole way. A lot of it. 

More particularly, you understand just how big a place Russia is. You zip over Holland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark in a matter of minutes, but then you cross the Russian border and don't reach the coast for about 10 h

ours. 

Siberia is astonishing; mile after untold mile of snowy plateau, interspersed with only the very occasional sign of human inhabitance, and I found myself wondering how many years it has been since anybody set foot on some of these steppes. That might sound crazy, but staggeringly few people live here - only 180 million in all Russia, and the vast majority of those are in the cities. In the 18th century it took the explorer Vitus Bering (you know him - the one after whom the Strait is named) and his crew three arduous years to cross this country just to reach the starting point for his famous oceanic journey, and I'm beginning to understand why. It's a heck of a long way. Especially if you're dragging a ship along with you.

Darkness comes and goes remarkably quickly (we are, of course, traversing timezones at a tremen

dous tempo), with only the odd light in the darkness denoting a human presence.

Eventually, mountains begin to rise up out of the ground, and then you cross the ocean and you see Japan. The Land of the Rising Sun. Unfortunately, that sunrise is bad news for us - just as we're beginning to feel sleepy, morning has broken at our destination. There's a long day ahead.

We got through it though, principally by wandering around beautiful Japanese gardens (public ones, like those of the imperial palace, not trespassing through people's backyards) and eating. We were also stopped in the street by the nicest old man, who was keen to try out his English on us. He used words like 'thrifty' and apologised for 'disturbing your precious walking time', so we told him his English was excellent and I think he could have died happy there and then.

Anyway, you're all probably very tired (there's the first of doubtless many Lost in Translation references), and I've started writing nonsense (no change there, you might say), so I'll sign off for now. The important thing is that we're in Tokyo.

- Adam