A few unexpected things have happened this month that have taken me away from my computer.  Now that I’m trying to get back to a routine I’m having problems with a tooth.  I went to the dentist with a crack in a back molar that will take 5 visits to the dentist to fix.  I haven’t met a person who likes having dental work done so you won’t be surprised when I say that I’m not enjoying it.  At least I’m being given strong painkillers.

I have been getting more involved with English theatre in Tokyo over the past year.  Black Stripe Theater is putting on The Dresser, by Ronald Harwood, in September and I’m working on the costumes for that.  Tokyo is not the easiest place to find clothing suitable for a play set in 1941 in Britain, but I’m enjoying the challenge.

Tonight we went to see the fireworks on the Sumida River.  In the past we have tried to find somewhere to sit but that takes a lot of preparation.  This year we decided to walk along the river during the display.  Even though there were tens of thousands of people outside there was still a route that was clear.  We ended up with a better view than we had in the past and we got to exercise.

My first lunch time back in Tokyo and I had to resist buying far too much sushi.  I miss it when I travel.  I sometimes buy it in other countries but it’s not the same.  I worry about eating sushi in places far from the sea, or in places where raw fish isn’t commonly eaten, so I tend to buy rolls that contain vegetables or cooked fish. But never avocado as I can’t stand the green mushy stuff and hate that American sushi chefs are fascinated with it.

I did get a shock in a Japanese restaurant in Florida as they served an “Atom Bomb Roll”.  This horrifyingly named roll contained salmon and spiced tuna.  I can’t imagine that anyone Japanese was involved in that restaurant.  Oddly named sushi seemed to be a theme as they also had a “Beauty and the Beast Roll” that contained tuna, eel, crab, avocado, and cream cheese, which sounds disgusting.   Thankfully today’s sushi was amazing.

I’m really pleased to be back home. But there is one thing that I really didn’t miss…

… my apartment block jerking and swaying.

I’m finally on my way back to Japan. I did manage to pack a lot into my two months but I always feel like I could do more as there were people I didn’t manage to contact never-mind see. I was going to write about the highlights of my trip but I’m tired and finding it hard to think past last week.

I’m looking forward to being home.

I appear to be in Northern Ireland at the a similar time to when I was here last year. And just like last year summer is a cold and wet affair. Today we had a high of 14 C (57F). Last year I posted a picture of my Mum’s forlorn washing and looking out the window today nothing much has changed.

I do love how summer smells here, the flowers and the wet grass reminding me of my childhood. I’m also enjoying the spring-like weather, as I had enough summer in Orlando and New York. I have quite a few things planned for my short trip so hopefully I still like the weather when I have to walk around in it.

I’m sitting in the lounge at JFK waiting on my flight to London. I’ve been here for about 6 weeks and I’m ready to leave. I do like visiting but I’m not sure that I could live here. On a frivolous note it will take me months to recover from the overeating that’s so easy to indulge in. On a serious note the racial tension and violence, that seems to be on the rise, is unsettling.

I’ve seen a number of people talking about their midlife crisis recently, probably because lots of my friends are of a similar age to me. I enjoyed listening to Kieran Setiya discuss this on Philosophy Bites.

“If you have a desire for a goal and your life is guided by that, that’s what’s giving meaning to your life, in a way, by aiming to complete that goal, to finish that project, what your aiming to do or the effect of your success will be to eliminate that project from your life.  It’s now done and thereby to eliminate a source of meaning from your life.

So pursing projects has this paradoxical self destructive quality whereby the things that are giving purpose to your existence are the very things, in pursing which, you are extinguishing and thereby destroying the purpose of your life.”

I was reading the Global Peace Index 2016 [PDF] today.  Of the 163 independent states and territories ranked Japan came in at number 9, Ireland at 12, the UK at 47, and the United States of America is at 103.  I’m always surprised by how poorly the USA performs in these studies, as the parts I visit appear quite safe.  But there is no doubt watching the news tonight, from our New York hotel room, that the country seems anything but safe.   I’m also stunned that the index lists the national cost of violence in the USA as $2,028,740,716,654.  A number that doesn’t appear real.

“The 2016 Global Peace Index (GPI) shows the world became less peaceful in the last year, reinforcing the underlying trend of declining peace over the last decade. Results also show a growing global inequality in peace, with the most peaceful countries continuing to improve while the least peaceful are falling into greater violence and conflict.”

Tonight we queued for about an hour at Black Tap, Soho, so that we could try their popular milkshakes.  I had told my niece that you could get any food you wanted in NYC and she asked me to find the best milkshake.  “Best” can be defined in many ways, and I’ve certainly had a milkshakes that tasted better than tonights, but it was the most over-the-top milkshake I have ever had.  Mine was called “The Cookie” and was a vanilla shake with quite a few cookies.