I had an enormous amount of fun researching Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, not least because I was able to pay a visit to Japan. Also, most of the other locations in the book (with the exception of Nazca in Peru) were easily accessible to me in Ireland, where I live. Once again, if you would like to comment on any of the ideas on any of these pages, or indeed on those in Virtually Maria or A Matter of Time please feel free to contact me AT THIS ADDRESS.
Japan
I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Japan as part of the research for Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow including the island of Shodo-Shima in the Inland Seto Sea, the village of Atami and Tokyo city itself. I would like to thank everyone I met there, particularly the people of Shodo-Shima and Atami who made me very welcome.
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SHODO-SHIMA
In Shodo-Shima, they even put my name on a painted wooded plaque outside the hotel! Anyone wishing to creep away in cognito and have a quiet weekend in Japan away from prying eyes - be warned!
Our first view of Japan in Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow is the quiet, mist-shrouded island of Shodo-Shima in the inland Seto Sea, where Yukiko Funakoshi has retreated to recover her strength after the battles of A Matter of Time. She is also there undercover, to train her followers for the battle of the Mawashi-Saito building that will be her revenge on those who destroyed her parents.
Yukiko's plans almost come unstuck however, when she becomes involved with a local oyster farmer over landing rights to a jetty on her shoreline and brings down the wrath of the Japanese mafia - the Yakusa - upon her head.
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ATAMI
This is the seaside town south of Tokyo where my Gichin Funakoshi, the President of Mawashi-Saito lives. His house is behind the station on a hill overlooking the sea.
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TOKYO
Tokyo is an incredible city that floods with light at nightime. It also has the most incredible rainstorms I had ever seen. Umbrellas play an important part in the introduction of one of the main characters in Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and here is a typical scene of Tokyo in the rain.
In Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow one of the principal scenes is a pitch battle at the headquarters of Mawashi-Saito in the Shinjuku business district - an area filled with gigantic skyscrapers that give breathtaking views of the city.
 
In my mind's eye, the fictional headquarters of Mawashi-Saito had to be a smooth and elegant tower of glass and concrete that housed not only the offices of the corporation, but also a huge shopping complex. The building that finally inspired me is the one on the right, in Tokyo's Shinjuku district.
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UENO / NINJUTSU MUSEUM
 
The Ninja Museum and Ueno was very useful for my research into the martial art of Ninjutsu - of which Yukiko Funakoshi is a complete master. One of the terrible weapons that the Japanese gangsters from the Yakuza try to use on her is the claw on the right.
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Ireland
I have been fortunate enough to have lived in Ireland for the last thirty years and it is home to me now. Therefore, in creating Virtually Maria, A Matter of Time and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, many of my favourite places have crept into the pages of the books.
MARIA'S VALLEY
"Maria's valley" was inspired by a beautiful location in the Wicklow Hills, south of Dublin. Most of this valley, between Lough Dan and Lough Tey, is privately owned but is accessible along the narrow band of the public walk called the Wicklow Way. Virtually Maria begins, and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow ends, here in the farmhouse which Maria's family owned and which Theo Gilkrensky buys back for her as a wedding present.
The virtual reality dream sequence in the chapter "Minerva's Song" in Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow opens on a mountain top overlooking the valley.
This is my wife Jane on the afternoon that inspired it.
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THEO'S ISLAND
In Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, we see more of Theo's island retreat and laboratory complex off the south-west coast of County Cork than we do in either Virtually Maria or A Matter of Time.
The real "Tuskar Rock" is, in fact, off the south-east coast of Ireland near Wexford, but I liked the name and so transplanted it to be south-west of Baltimore, Co. Cork.
Theo's fictional island is loosely based on Sherkin Island, where Jane and I spent many happy holidays when the kids were younger. My friend Matt Murphy runs his private research station there, as well as the quarterly publication Sherkin Comment, to which I contribute a regular Captain Cockle page of cartoons and nature tips for children.
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Copyright John Joyce 2008
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