With a winter trip to central Asia lined up for December and a return from Africa in mid-November my remaining time in Tokyo can be measured by how many days it takes to apply for each visa. The Uzbekistan embassy takes applications on Mondays and Tuesdays, Thursday and Fridays. Mornings to drop off, afternoons for pickup, woe betide you are in a hurry.

Dropping off my passport for the Kazakstan embassy my flights were booked into Almaty. On the day it came for pick-up the itinery had already changed toTaskkent. Applying for a visa for a country you don’t plan to pass through is a waste of a page on a passport with not enough blank pages.

Conversations echoed throughout a multi-cultural team with a heavy travel schedule.