‘Just for the conference. I’m going home the day after tomorrow.’

‘That’s not long enough to get over jet lag. It takes a day for every hour’s time difference. Can’t you stay longer?’

It sounded too much like an invitation. I shook my head.

‘Got to go home to my son, my business and my dog.’

‘Shame you can’t see more of Tokyo. Or Kyoto. Or Mount Fuji. Or the Nagano mountains. The real Japan.’

‘My husband told me about a bar that only plays one kind of music, and only has one kind of drink and only serves one kind of food. As much as any temple or mountain, that mad bar sounds like the real Japan to me.’

He nodded. ‘When the Japanese love something, they really love it,’ he said. ‘I mean, they’re crazy about it, they’re obsessed. I admire that.’ He indicated my empty glass. ‘Another?’

But one was enough. I wanted to look for that bar. I signalled for the bill.

‘I’ll remember your speech,’ he said. ‘I go to a lot of these things and I see a lot of people who have started very successful companies. But I never heard a speech as good as your one.’ He raised his glass. ‘Honestly,’ he said.

‘All thanks to you.’

‘No, all thanks to Sir John Mills.’

‘Well, then God bless Sir John.’

The bill arrived. Predictably he tried to pick up the tab but I would not let him.

I definitely owed him and Sir John Mills a round.

And I could buy my own drinks.

The bar I sought was a pink glow at the end of a dark side street in deepest Shibuya. Inside, there were maybe a dozen seats, half of them occupied, a mixture of sleek Japanese couples and well-heeled gaijin – ‘outside people’, meaning foreigners, The Rough Guide to Tokyo had taught me.

Japan felt like a stage set where everyone knew their part. The teenage girls that ruled the streets of Shibuya, the salarymen staggering bleary-eyed to their long-haul commute home, the fashionable Japanese couples, the sophisticated gaijin, too cool for a boozy night in Roppongi or Shinjuku. Everyone played their part.

And I wondered – what is your role in Japan, Tara? What part are you playing tonight?

Led Zeppelin were cranking out ‘When the Levee Breaks’ from the fourth album and the LP’s iconic cover was displayed on the bar’s cream-coloured wall – an oil painting of some old rustic geezer collecting a bale of twigs hanging on the ruins of a demolished home in the foreground as a bleak tower block loomed large in the background.

Behind the bar there was a single large black truffle under a glass case and, beyond that, a young female chef working in the steam of the small kitchen. The bartender placed a glass of Australian Shiraz in front of me and asked me if I had any musical requests. They would play anything you liked as long as it was Led Zeppelin, of course. And I grinned because this was it – a bar that served only truffle pasta, with a wine list offering only red Australian wine and a playlist where the only music was Led Zeppelin – on vinyl. It was a great bar, a bar that had good music and fine food and drink all waiting for you at the end of the universe.