There is this strange felling, quite indescribable when your boss asks you if you have a valid passport? One that isn’t expired. I still believe they do it on purpose, a kind of tease and please thing, something loosely related to a wink. So when my intercom rang and the boss asked if the green book was still valid, I wanted to jump out of his earpiece and tell him, hell yes, aye, ji, yes sir with a big beaming smile. But off course in such matters it is best to hold one’s composure, and so I said a polite yes. Deep inside a voice asked me to yell, “Man its valid for at least five years!!!” Providence smiled upon me when my boss told me to pack up for a two weeks trip to Tokyo. This was an all expense paid trip and I wasn’t inclined on taking any chances. So with just four weeks to go, I applied for a visa and was deftly granted one, thus opening the doors to Tokyo for me. I flew from Lahore to Tokyo via Bangkok on a Thai Airlines plane. Little did I know what Tokyo would have in store for me? If I were to begin from the summation I would be inclined to say that Japan is a near perfect country, and Tokyo is more beautiful and clean than what we see in the movies. I can guarantee a trip to Tokyo will leave you dumbfounded, here’s why:
. What the …. are you serious? I wanted to ask him if this was a bad joke, if this was some weird antic at getting even with me, if this was really his dark side playing on me, if this was just a painful joke under his very sober guise. What the … Next up the administration guy walked in with a thick wad of papers, asking me to fill them up and turn in immediately. Then the visas, then tickets, everything was moving at the speed of light. Three weeks later, this scribe, with a ruck sack on his shoulders, wearing an old Levis, an Old Navy hoodie and a pair of Nikes, boarded the Thai Airways jet for Tokyo!!! 
From Thattha it is a mere 25 kms.
My Random Ramblings 