Posting from Izumo, Japan

I am in the future. It's currently Friday, October 8, 2010 and I am 13 hours ahead of all you folks on the east coast. I'm a time traveler. Want to know my secrets?

My flight left Charlotte at 9:00 am on Wednesday, October 6th destined for Chicago. I made a few last minute phone calls, business emails and met up with Team Ivy League prior to boarding United Flight 881 to Narita Airport in Tokyo. It's a great group of guys which includes: Steve Sundell (Columbia), Zach Hine (Cornell), Ben Stern (Princeton), Robert Hartnett (Columbia), Sam Luff (Cornell), Michael Maag (Princeton), Paul Morris (Columbia), Frank Tinney (Princeton) and myself. The first three listed have all been on the trip before while the others are all new comers.

During the eternal flight from Chicago to Tokyo I read parts of What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell, took naps, listened to podcasts and watched movies. I viewed three of the four movies that played during the flight which were Cyrus, Dinner for Schmucks and The Back Up Plan. The first two had their moments, but the third was utterly awful. J. Lo isn't even hot these days which you combine with her terrible acting and an even worse plot... Ben and I agreed that we were even more bored watching the movie than just sitting watching the map of our airplane slowly cross over the US, Canada, Alaska (basically not the US), water, Russia, more water and then Japan. During the flight I was sure to get up and walk around as much as possible. I spent most of the time at Michael, Frank and Robert's (Bobby) seats because they scored an exit row, granted both Mike and Frank top 6'4" which means they will be two of the tallest guys in all of Japan.

We finally arrived at Narita around 3:00 pm, walked through customs, grabbed our luggage and were greeted by a guide. She told us that we had to wait for two mystery guests who arrived around 5:00 pm. Our team plus the photographer (John Deputy) walked around the airport eating Bagel & Bagel sandwiches. We found an observation deck where we killed 30 minutes watching planes take off and land. Very cool if you were three years old. When it was time we walked back down to meet our guide and the guests. It got to 5:15 pm before the guide came over and asked for Mr. Stern in a cute Japanese accent. Turns out we were waiting for a guy that was on our flight the entire time and arrived with us. It made for a funny, awkward Lost in Translation moment (I'm not a fan of that movie either, but thought I'd sound cool by referencing it). I felt it was a better comparison to the Dos Equis commercials featuring the "most interesting guy in the world." Ben is so important that he waits for himself to arrive late.

All of us had a bus ride across Tokyo to the old Haneda airport where we would be flying to some town that was not Izumo. The flight was about 90 minutes long and we were all exhausted. I did, however prior to the flight, score a cafe misto at a Starbucks that was overpriced but not half bad. Upon landing we hopped a bus that would drive us an hour to our hotel in Izumo.

So it's now a little after midnight, but I'm wide awake. I've showered and can't smell myself anymore. Tomorrow I will update more on the trip and fill in the last few workouts prior to coming to Japan. Keep reading...