Traveller in Time and Space

I had my first exciting time travel experience today, by crossing the international date line for the first time. Well, technically the second time, since I went forwards in time last week, but today/yesterday I went across the good Phileas Fogg way, and went back in time 24 hours. Thinks: if Phileas Fogg had gone around the world in the opposite direction, would he have been completely screwed? And also, how come he didn't notice till London -- didn't he read the newspapers while he was in America and spot he was a day ahead. Or maybe the IDL used to be in the atlantic back then?

Much to report from my trip to the land of the rising sun (though still not entirely clear why it gets called that, since most places I've been the sun has risen). As I speak I have manga scattered on the floor, the new Halcali CD playing on my stereo, and photos downloading. However, it's also about 4.78am in my head, so don't expect too much tonight. Travelling from Osaka to Tokyo to Narita to Newark in one day was maybe not as good as an idea as it seemed at the time. Although, it should have never seemed like a good idea. Still, the lowlight of the whole trip was probably the one hour wait in line for immigration back into the US, just for the old left finger, right finger, smile for the camera routine. While I was waiting, I noticed that the room off to the side where you really don't want them to escort you (it was populated by various depressed looking travellers clasping insufficient travel documents) is called officially "INS Pass -- F.U. 170". I wonder if this is deliberate. I would have taken a photograph, but to be honest you really don't want to do anything that has any chance of pissing them off, and getting snap happy on the secure side of an airport that has a direct flight to gitmo is probably not a good idea.

Now let me see if I can summon up the energy to post some pictures.