I landed in Hong Kong on the afternoon of October 18, 2004. My journal entry for that day reads: “Call Alberto [my then boss] after 18:00 @ [his mobile number] 4 dinner.” These are the three earliest photos I have from that trip—one taken during a day trip to Hong Kong to renew (read: buy) my visa; another on a weekend hike near the Yantian port in Shenzhen; and a third during a business trip for a management meeting with my then employer. Today, I turn twenty-one.

Given how things played out the year before, I was frightened to go…

This is the account of the events leading to, during, and following the first of nine trips to Japan that I decided to take as part of my Tokyo9 project. Let me say this out front: things didn’t go as planned—not even close...