Day 24, and the Ferrari tour is deep in Japan.

For four days the red caravan (not that sort, obviously) has been winding southwest through the island of Honshu, picking up a steady stream of Ferrari enthusiasts as it passes.

No one does slightly maniacal devotion like the Japanese, and its obvious that the history and prestige of the prancing horse has struck a chord in the Far East.

It's the 12th country of Ferrari's round-the-world tour in celebration of the marque's 60th birthday. The prancing horse has become a sexagenarian (no, it's not as dodgy as it sounds), and instead of marking the event with, say, a nice cake and a bag of party poppers, Ferrari has embarked on a 41-country relay.

Expected to involve more than 10,000 Ferraris, the progress of the tour is marked by a specially commissioned baton. It's a big bugger, too - a whacking great lump of red aluminium, bearing tiny enamelled versions of the 60 images of Ferrari's history (see gallery).

It's indubitably impressive, but couldn't they have gone for something a touch less ostentatious? We'll be doing our best to wrestle the baton from Ferrari's watchful gaze - and perhaps replace it with a breadstick or rolling pin - when the rally gets closer to Europe.

The passing of that bloody baton - an irritatingly regular occurrence, requiring regular stops of great pomp and ceremony - has taken on a curiously ritualistic air upon the backdrop of Samurai castles and Shogun temples (please, no Mitsubishi jokes - you're better than that).

Yes, we're definitely taking the tourist route. The phrase 'culture clash' acquires a whole new meaning when you witness a staid 40-car Ferrari procession past mist-shrouded Mount Fuji. Oh, and there's a woman in a Ferrari-themed kimono wandering around. Strange.

Not quite as strange as China, though.

The train of conspicuously expensive, conspicuously loud and - for the most part - conspicuously red supercars caused a bigger stir in the People's Republic than in any other the countries visited thus far.

Although Chinese car ownership is booming - new car sales are increasing by 15 per cent year-on-year - even the cheapest models are still prohibitively expensive for most of the population. So it's unsurprising that a growling pack of Italy's finest drew a crowd on every corner.

Not that a train of Ferraris passes unnoticed anywhere. From the beginning of the tour in Abu Dhabi on January 28 (which might seem an odd choice of starting-place, until you learn that Ferrari is planning to build a theme park and a race circuit on the island), the progress of the baton has been very public and - predictably - very very fast.

A whistle-stop tour of the Middle East - taking in Dubai, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait in just six days - was followed by a cross-continent jump to Singapore. Then Malaysia, Hong Kong and a six-day trek across China.

If you reckon that all sounds a touch hectic, you'd be right - take another look at our animation to see just how frenetic all the globe-hopping is.

We'll be bringing you updates from the tour all the way to its grand finale in Maranello on June 23. Sayonara.