Following a long “day” of travel I am now in Kanazawa, Japan. I use the term “day” somewhat notionally: I started early Wednesday morning California time and arrived at my hotel in Kanazawa after dark on Thursday. For me, this was all one long day (thanks International Dateline!).

My trip involved many vehicles: car to the airport, airplane to Seattle, flight to Tokyo’s Haneda airport (if you are wondering, I changed planes to make frequent flier miles work), airport shuttle bus at Haneda from Terminal 3 to Terminal 2, bus to the plane on the tarmac, domestic flight from Haneda airport to Komatsu airport, bus from Komatsu to Kanazawa Station, taxi to my hotel.

Speaking of my hotel, which is really very nice, the room has four remote controls (not counting the television): Air conditioning, Bathroom air conditioner, Humidifier, and (of course) the multifunction toilet. The controls for these remotes are (again of course) in Japanese; the hotel very kindly gave me a sheet with the English translations. Thanks to the not-lost-in-translation cheat sheet, I can work all of these devices, but I must say the toilet has a mind of its own. Perhaps it has been infected with artificial intelligence or something, but that is a story for another day.

Today (Friday in Japan) I wandered with my camera in the grounds of Kanazawa Castle, and the famous Kenrokuen Garden, altogether superb.