I wish you a Merry Christmas!!2008.12.25

There's just a week to go until 2008 draws to a close. Looking back, I was able to visit so many countries this year. I saw the New Year in on an island of Uruguay called Punta del Este, and visited the UN offices (among other places) in NY in January, which hinted towards the new kind of activities that 2008 was going to see me involved with. I spent the month of February travelling in Africa, and was blown away to discover more deeply than before the special, unique something that Africa has, that can't be found in any other continent on Earth. Then came March, and the beginning of serious preparations for the Take Action match that was held in June. Then, in Sweden at around the same time, I experienced the magnificent aurora and an ice hotel for the first time in my life.

Then came April. From April I began full training for the match in June. To bring by body back to football-playing level after a two year break was no easy task. I went to Thailand and carried out a daily training routine, focusing on running. Then May. With the Take Action match coming up in the following month, I was really ridiculously busy every day. I practiced every morning, and spent the afternoons on all kinds of preparations and negotiations. Then came June, and this year's biggest event, the Take Action game. It was all an experiment in that it was a first for me to try doing something like this event, but the Charity Gala Dinner held the day before the match was an even bigger success than I had imagined it would be, and I will never forget the way I saw the stadium when I entered - completely filled with green. At that moment I made the decision to keep on with this kind of project.

July. All the Take Action events were over, and I had a chance to catch my breath for the first time in a while, setting out once again on my journey, which had been on hold for a few months. In August I went to the Beijing Olympics. I had taken part in the Atlanta and Sydney Olympics, but as football is always played in regional cities away from the host city until the semi-final and grand final stages, I had never really tasted the atmosphere of the Olympics. So in that sense these were really my first Olympic Games. September. Reflecting on and trying to learn from the June Take Action events, we began preparations for next year. Alongside this, I began a series of discussion sessions for "Landscape", a special program to be aired on BS television in Japan at the end of this year and beginning of next year. This all began from a simple request for me to interview five sportspeople, but I said that would be boring, and suggested having each of the five athletes travel in an area selected by me, and that I would interview each of them at the end of their respective journeys. This little proposal of mine got accepted (!) and it started looking as though I was about to become rather busy...

October. Filming of the special TV program begins. While I had of course been interviewed before, I had never seriously taken on the role of interviewing someone else, even in nakata.net TV. I got to find out first hand just how difficult interviewing a person is. The most challenging of the interviews we shot this time was that in New Zealand with Ma-kun (Masahiro Tanaka). What was hard about it was the travel!! I took part in ex-US president Clinton's "Clinton Global Initiative" in Hong Kong, and then flew from Hong Kong to Auckland. After an 11 hour trip, I arrived early in the morning in Auckland, and changed to a helicopter that took me to the shooting location. There we did the interview, and I returned that afternoon to Auckland in time to catch an evening flight from Auckland to Beijing via Singapore. So it was a day trip from China to New Zealand and back again. At 12 hours each way, I don't think anyone could deny this was a grueling schedule. I would really love to take my time to enjoy New Zealand a bit more next time I visit!!

Then, November. One country I went to last year and fell in love with was Bhutan. This time I was really excited not only to be able to go back to Bhutan, but also to be able to make the acquaintance of the new King! In future I hope I have a chance to take a football team there. By December all the filming for the TV show had finished, and I spent a couple of weeks in Japan. This was in order to work on the content of next year's Take Action activities, and to work on various procedures necessary to establish a fund. Actually there were heaps of other things to work on during this stay in Japan too. I had the filming of a TV commercial for TBC, who are going to be supporting the Take Action campaign. This commercial shoot actually went ahead based on an idea that I proposed. As was the case in the Landscape TV special, my feeling lately has been that if I am going to take on a job, I really want to be more deeply involved in it than what I may have been in the past.

So as you can see, it has been another year of crazily busily travelling all over the world, and a count showed that my number of countries visited just this year has been 41! Of course, while I had visited some of these countries many times, others were places I went to this year for the first time in my life. My journey has now been going on for 2 1/2 years since my retirement from professional football in 2006. One think that I feel really strongly now, is
"I want to travel in Japan"

I mentioned in my mail the other day that my attention has been drawn to Japan lately on various levels, but particularly what I have in mind is that I'd like to do something to give a boost to regional areas - to help bring some more life back. In fact I'm thinking of "bringing life back to regional areas" as a theme for Take Action next year. While in Japan this December, instead of stopping in Tokyo as often tends to happen, I travelled around to Osaka, Fukushima, Yamagata and other prefectures. I think the smoothness of travel on Japan's rail system is fantastic, and travelling in these areas also made me aware of something wonderful about the scenery and environments in each area. Next year I hope to go to heaps more areas, and really experience the local uniqueness in each place. December has been busy every day with preparations for next year, but a lot of great resources are coming together, so everybody please be looking forward to what next year brings!!

To totally change the subject, the other day, after going to see the final of the Club World Cup and the Yokohama international stadium, I took 5 friends who were over from Thailand to "Robataya", a restaurant in Roppongi. As the name suggests for those who know, this is a Robata-yaki restaurant, where you select the ingredients you want from a whole range of everything from vegetables to fish and meat that are displayed right in front of you, and have them cooked for you. Perhaps because of this style, this is really popular with people from overseas (including the Thai people who came with me, of course!). What really surprised me was when, after midnight when we were just about finished eating, Stojkovic the manager of Nagoya Granpus Eight, arrived at the restaurant with Michel Platini and several others. Who would have thought that I would run into Stojkovic and Platini here!? What was really funny was when I went to say hello to Plantini: his comment was, "I am from Juventus. You are from Roma. So we are enemies." Of course he was joking, but it just shows how Italian he is! I was also surprised by Stojkovic's amazingly fluent Italian...

Anyway, after finishing my work that needed doing in Japan before the end of the year, I left Japan yesterday, and as for where I am spending the end of the year... This year it's the beach!! Last year I spent Christmas at Machu Picchu and then went to Brazil to play football. This year I'm planning to relax at the beach. The reason for this is, as some of you who listened to the Top Athlete Mobile voice message will know, because I injured my right arm last week playing football. It was so painful that I went straight to hospital, only to find out that I had fractured my arm. You would expect that to be a bit painful, wouldn't you?! In the end, I had a removable cast put on. So despite being at the beach for the end of the year, I will have to give up on the idea of swimming, playing tennis, or doing wake boarding that I love so much. This leaves plenty of time for reading manga, so I plan to read manga to my heart's content, and am prepared with a whole suitcase full from Japan! Haha! For me, sunbathing on the beach while reading my favourite manga sounds like a pretty luxurious way to pass time too!! Anyway, I hope to fix this arm as quickly as possible, and recharge my batteries for next year.

Well, there's just a week left of this year now. Everybody please take care not to get injured or sick, and enjoy the rest of the year. Merry Christmas!

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