Ohayo Gozaimas! It’s 4 a.m. Tuesday in Tokyo, and I’ve been awake for a couple hours on my first morning here. My time clock is messed up after the 11-hour flight from Portland and bus and taxi rides. I went out last night into Ginza and bravely ventured into a yakitori/sake restaurant. The staff concluded that I was Australian, but I’m not certain why, or whether that is a good or bad thing. Tokyo is just as we left it when we visited three years ago, over-the-top busy, noisy and compelling, a sensory overload of a city. I have my first meetings today with leaders of the Foreign Press Center and one of Japan’s top experts on fisheries resources, which are in trouble here. Japan is badly overfishing its waters, its seafood consumption is shrinking and the number of Japanese fishermen, who are aging, is falling by 10,000 people a year. At this pace, they say, Japan will have no fishermen in just 12 years.

Last night I met Suzuki-san, the Foreign Press Center officer who arranged my trip. She speaks very good English, having lived and studied in Toronto for four years. I am a good two feet taller than she is — a towering Australian, as it were.

There is some sort of contraption in my room to press slacks and shirts. It’s not an iron, exactly, and I think I will give it a try now. I still have two hours to kill before breakfast.

Jamata, for now