Well, things started off quite interestingly. I ordered a taxi from VIP Taxi, as usual, and waited outside for some ten minutes, the weight of my backpack and laptop bag starting to make me regret my decision to go wait outside so early. Eventually he arrived.
The guy I got was a young-ish Irish man, looking a startlingly similar to someone I knew from work. He took my stuff to the trunk, and we were off.
During the drive to the airport, there was the usual chatter with the driver – where are you from; where are you going; etc… – but after having expressed an interest in living in Japan, he brought up the radiation from Dai-Ichi, and then moved on to talk about Chernobyl, after which he went on to say that the Russians are the scum of the Earth. Oooooookay…