Bumping into the All Blacks in Tokyo on the way to give a Maction Planet Iconic Tokyo Tour

Maction Planet meets the All Blacks

AIG have just released a new advert, set in Tokyo in which New Zealand’s All Blacks players… well, I won’t spoil it for you – it’s pretty good! It promotes AIG’s “ACTIVE CARE” concept, revolving around mitigating risk instead of just dealing with the consequences when life catches you by surprise.

Speaking of surprise, that is exactly what happened when I boarded a Yamanote Line train around 1pm on 6 December 2016. I was on my way to meet guests to embark on a Maction Planet Iconic Tokyo Tour, followed by a Craft Beer Experience.

I was at Ebisu Station, intending to take the train sotomawari (clockwise) to meet my guests at their hotel in Ikebukuro. I heard a train on the platform and bounded up the stairs, just managing to make it through the train doors. I looked up, and there were the All Blacks.

Caught completely off guard, I immediately said “Train is even more packed than normal, lads”. They laughed, and one of them said “We don’t normally travel like this.”

Of course, I had to document proceedings. And so was born the selfie you see above!

The lads got off the train one stop later at Shibuya. They were filmed as they exited the train, on their way to continue making the very advert mentioned at the start of this post. Of course I only know that now, 4 months later!

I had another great Tokyo Tale to tell our guests, who were from France and huge Rugby fans! As we like to say at Maction Planet, “Large!”

Maction Planet runs Rugby Tours to club, Super Rugby and National Team games. Contact us at info@mactionplanet.com to book yours!

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