I heart Tokyo. It's 4:31 and I got up with the Wall-E crew at 4 so the driver, Leo, can take me to the Tsukiji fish market. It's gonna be a tough day! But then I wasn't sleeping so well anyway.

Yesterday was a whirlwind; a quick-e tour of what seemed like the entire city, with Leo stopping for a few minutes in every place between here and Asakusa. Traffic in L.A. is NOTHING compared to this. You sit, and you sit, but you can people-watch while waiting for the lights to turn and there's plenty to see, from the tragically hip to the tourists. We made it to the Sensoji temple, where we lit incense and pulled the smoke toward us for "good luck;" to Kiddieland en route to the the ultra-cool and youthful Harajuku 'hood, made a very quick stop at Harajuku itself, and then the Tokyo PR team took us out (graciously including me) to a shabu-shabu restaurant at Shinjuku -- the crazy neon skyscraper neighborhood, where most of "Lost in Translation" took place. I've got a few minutes before we set off again. After the work is over for Akhil and co., we'll take a train to Kyoto and stay until Saturday. Who knew there was so much to see right here in Tokyo? It's an incredible, lively, energetic and welcoming place.

19 hours door to door but I'm here, in Tokyo, where Akhil's been since Friday. We're at the Westin Hotel at the Ebisu stop in the southwestern part of the city and it's perfectly gorgeous - high 50s, clear and sunny. I can see Mt. Fuji from the room.

So far the uneventful 12-hour flight, 2-hour train odyssey and 30-minute walk to find the hotel from the subway station are about all I've had time to experience. I took an hour walk around the 'hood this morning and found it quiet and pleasant, the people who've helped me find my way around so far kind and generous. I just took out a map in the subway station and two people stopped to point me in the right direction, didn't even ask. Akhil and the Wall-E team should be back from their TV spot tours in a half hour and then we're off to sightsee. It's late fall and true to what the guidebooks promised, the fall colors are everywhere.

LIke I said, I live for vacation. The in-between periods this year have been pretty darn boring. We get up, we work, we come home at 8, we eat, we watch the tube, we sleep. That's 5 days a week, with weekends for chores. That's life! No, wait, that can't be life. Ok, I gotta change something.

Fortunately, an impromptu vacation is coming up: Japan. Akhil has one more Wall-E premiere to tend to, and it's in Tokyo -- during THANKSGIVING week. Talk about inconvenient. A perfect opportunity and excuse, I suppose, for me to tag along. He flies the week before, on Thursday, and I'll join up with him and crew on Monday. The premiere is Tuesday night. On Wednesday we'll take the train to Kyoto for 3 days. From what I've read this should be an incredible trip! Narita airport, however, is nearly two hours away from Tokyo. Can you believe that? So I need to get myself from Narita to Tokyo, on no sleep (and we all know I'm a sleep wimp), and from wherever that drops me to the Westin Hotel. From there I will relive "Lost in Translation" in its entirety.

This fall is winding down already but we finally, after 10 years here, found the one place within day-trip distance where you can actually pick apples. Yucaipa! There's foliage there. Yes, really, foliage. In L.A. Cider donuts, actual orchards, cider presses too. But they don't really do Macintoshes. That's what I think if when I think of apple-picking, New Englander that I am. We settled for Pink Ladies and WInesaps, and Akhil made an apple pie. He ate most of it. I liked his peach one better. Snowline has the cider donuts, Willowbrook had the Winesaps -- and a pot-bellied pig named Blossom.