Tokyo, Japan!

At work, my team is based all over the world; west and east coast US, UK, Sweden, Germany, France, Brazil, India, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Africa and Australia. This accounts for the black circles under my eyes that appear by Friday night. This year, I decided to set aside a small budget to meet my team in Japan, Hong Kong, Australia and India and meet the local business leaders we work with to better understand their business needs. Personally, I think that for all the technology in the world, a face to face meeting is still the best way to really understand client needs and build effective working relationships/high performing teams.

Enough of the management-speak already! Over the next few weeks, I'll share some of the sights I see and encounters I experience along the journey. Personal time is going to be very short on this trip because I have back to back meetings in each city and I'll be traveling London to Tokyo, Tokyo to Hong Kong, Kong Kong to Sydney and then home from Sydney via Hong Kong to London -- all in six days!

As my first update, I left London yesterday and flew 12 hours overnight to Tokyo, landing at 10am local time on Sunday. The immensely efficient airport ushered me quickly onto a bus to the city, which took 90 minutes. It took so long because Tokyo is ENORMOUS. Its a city of more than 35 million people, dwarfing London or New York. From the airport, we drove through 30 or so miles of industry on the outskirts of the city, which is on the sea, before we reached the city-proper. When we finally arrived in the center, the density of buildings is quite astonishing.

I'm stopping at the Cerulean Hotel, recommended by the local office. The view from my room is breathtaking. The immense sprawl of the city can be seen here -- and this is just looking in one direction! Click the pictures for bigger images.

I'm now off out to see what I can see and make the most of my free Sunday afternoon.