The room smelled like a gust of wind from Satan's anus. - Anthony Bourdain

It's as if Japanese men, all to aware that deep inside they'd like to stomp Tokyo flat, breathe fire, and do truly terrible and disgusting things to women, have built themselves the most beautiful of prisons for their rampaging ids. Instead of indulging their fantasies, they focus on food, or landscaping, or the perfect cup of tea — or a single slab of o-toro tuna — letting themselves go only at baseball games and office parties.

The journey is part of the experience - an expression of the seriousness of one's intent. One doesn't take the A train to Mecca.

When I was in Bulgarian paratroopers – we like this plane very much,’ he said. ‘Of course, we were all wearing parachutes.