We arrived to Doha, capital of Qatar at 6.30am local time. The 24 degrees at dawn already hit the chest and the lungs were welcoming humidity in the air. Eternal spring, or summer, with all shades of yellow and some blue.

I feel even more lost in time after a short (4 hrs) recovery sleep in our hotel – my body and mind doesn’t know anymore which day and which hour is it. We’ll leave to Tokio at 2.25am local time, so we set off to discover the city a bit.

Instead of the Hakkasan  restaurant we end up in the Opal by Gordon Ramsey for a light midday meal, then we head to the Museum of Islamic Art –  which got closed by the time we arrived. As such we enjoy some stretching out on hot stones by the bay in the Museum’s park until they kick us out :). And of course we cross the market, Souq Waqif to admire beautiful spices and talking parrots.

We’ll return to Hakkasan this evening, right before our next flight, although I hardly meet the dress code policy they have… I hope they’ll let me inside in my Timberland boots. They seemed happy that we’ll have only luggages with us, and no kids.

In our morning, whenever it occurred today,  both of us woke up with this song in our head, like a broken disc, again and again and again starting all over from a certain point:

This is how Sakura starts in this corner of the world, lost in between different timezones and cultures… for sure, there’s more to come. As tomorrow evening (in Japanese time, at least), we’ll walk around Tokio, for the first time (as for me).

And if you wonder, what does “sakurando” means… it’s a verb created in Spanish, and expresses the continuous act of celebrating cherry blossoming. Makes a lot of sense for me though for sure it doesn’t exist officially.

There’s a lot of cherry blossom leaves to be teared off by the wind till we arrive to Tokio tomorrow night… till then I share some photos with you of our first day: