"There is a universe in the basement!"

When I was in Japan, our financial director, a Japanese, a very formal elegant man, for some absurd reason took a liking to me.

He invited me to lunch with the head of Johnson & Johnson, an Englishman that I had been working with, on the next years campaign.

This was not a very normal thing, certainly not for me.

The client arrives to the office, for a meeting, it goes well, we then take off for lunch. We go in the financial directors car to a huge skyscraper downtown. It looked like a normal office building, without a restaurant in sight. We drive into the underground parking and go down about three stories. It looked like a normal parking lot, cars, attendants, numbered slots, all very much as you would imagine.

We pull up to an ornate, traditional wooden carved door, no signs, and three stories down. Attendants rush out to take the car and we are ushered into the “restaurant.”

We enter a world of sunshine and natural beauty. It is amazing, flowers, birds flying around…little tiny houses, bridges with little streams. It is raining over one of the small houses. All this three stories underground, unbelievable, talk about theme restaurants.

There is a whole universe down there.

We are led to a small house on stilts. It is where we are going to have lunch; there are two waitresses per person there. Drinks are served, no sooner do you take a sip when you are handed a fresh drink.

The meal is unbelievable; dozens of beautiful and delicious plates are served, each more amazing then the last.

This magnificent service goes on for at least two hours, the formal Japanese financial director loosens up and starts telling jokes, thank heavens there was no karaoke, we would have all done Elvis.

The most amazing thing about this meal was, no bill appeared, our car was ready when we left, we were handed beautiful presents, and addressed by name by the hostess.

Service, magic environment, wonderful food…all in a parking lot.