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The last time I was in London in June was in 2004. That’s quite a while since I had a summer in the UK. Having left NZ for at least 5-6 months before I get to go back, it feels quite surreal. Especially leaving Kate. I am so looking forward to having her arrive in London on July 9. The last week or so has been manic with getting her flat packed up and ready to let, getting out stuff into storage and getting packed ready to leave. What with the pandemic situation and all the practical things we have had to do – the last few days have been a blur. I will also be in London for less than a week before I’m off to New York for a 12 day course. In the meantime, I have a meeting with the Department of Health to find out about a possible job there. I’ll post more when I know.
Missing Wellington already (but it is nice to be warm).
I’m writing this on the A380 in economy class from Singapore to London. To be honest, the 777-200ER from Auckland to London was looking pretty tired and a little dated, and was very full. I didn’t sleep much, but about as much as I needed to get through the next day. Killed 6 hours at the airport by lounge-hopping and going for a swim at the rooftop swimming pool in Terminal 1 at Changi Airport. However, the A380 is a different beast altogether. The flight is still pretty full, but I think it feels quite roomy. I am on the main deck but might try and go for a look around in a short while, perhaps to the upper deck economy section. I’ve been pretty lucky to get 45D, and though i have a sleepy infant in the bassinet just next to me – they seem very quiet and haven’t heard a squeak from them …yet.
We’re about 3 hours into the flight and I have watched Watchmen, which for an unfilmable graphic novel I thought they did a brilliant job. The soundtrack was very good too, though it was a little spooky when they played ‘All along the Watchtower’ at a key point in the movie. Kate and I have watched all 4 seasons of Battlestar Galactica over the last 3 months. If you’ve watched it, you’ll know how key that particular song becomes as the series unfolds. It has become a bit of a fixation of ours – although the BSG franchise seems to favour the Bob Dylan version, and Watchmen uses Jimmy Hendrix. Still, when I heard the first few riffs, I sat up bolt upright and expected to see Saul Tigh grimacing one-eyed into the camera, muttering, ‘…it’s coming from the SHIP!’
I don’t think this A380 is talking to me quite yet, though it has managed to keep the door to Singapore Airlines open. After the flight from Auckland to Singapore, I had decided to stick to Air NZ pretty much exclusively. However, if prices were considerably different, or Singapore airlines manages to smarten up the 777 Singapore – Auckland leg, they could be back in the game.
God, I hate packing. But pack we must. And we’re making slow and steady progress, tortuous though it is at times. I have 6 days to go and this is my final weekend in Wellington until December. Very peculiar to be leaving work on the day a global pandemic phase 6 is declared by WHO. A job in emergency management for over 3 years, and I leave on that day. Ah, the hollow irony!
It looks like New Zealand authorities are beginning to pick up their first cases of community based transmission of Influenza A (H1 N1), and some of those cases are in Wellington. So, it looks like scrupulous hand-washing and hygiene practices for me to keep myself well before I go to the UK – though cases are increasing rapidly there too.
I still have relatively little idea as to the exact role I will be going into when I arrive in the UK, after my course in New York. I am slightly disappointed in the level of communication I am receiving from the Department of Health over there. I am now technically jobless and don’t know what I’ll be doing after I arrive in London – and from Tuesday, Kate is in the same boat. I’m sure it will all come out in the wash, but the uncertainty is a challenge that adds to the turmoil of the move.
Car and scooter on TradeMe (that’s the local eBay for you non-NZers), as are the plethora of excess music players that I have.
Is it really happening?
Took an old TV and excess clothes to the recycling station at the city dump.
Is it really happening?
Putting our clinical papers and books into the storage locker.
Is it really happening?
Pulling out the suitcase and trying to see how much might fit in it.
Is it really happening?
Emailing London to try and sort out a job and meeting people again for perhaps the first time in years.
Is it really happening?
My mum asking what Kate likes for breakfast.
Is it really happening?
Mailing people to arrange to say goodbye.
It is really happening.
June already. Hard to know how that happened. Time, as always, speeds up as you approach a deadline.Apart from the dreadful weather, it’s been a lovely weekend. I had a good cricket net for two hours with some of the lads and I feel like I’ve kept a bit of the form I was starting to show at the end of the season. Later that day, a few bits and pieces around the flat before heading off to the Gurdwara on Sunday morning for the first time in weeks.
I had a surprise in store. As the shabad are sung in the Gurdwara, there is a now a big projector screen on which a computer projects the shabad lyrics in both pubjabi, gurmurkhi and english scripts. Quite amazing. It was nice to catch up with people and I definitely want to be back there at least one more Sunday before I go to London. The rest of the weekend was in in Waikanae with Kate and her father Tim – and a cold night it was too. Winter really has hit New Zealand over the last week, blowing autumn aside with a cold blast up from the antarctic.
I’m still unsure as to what work I will have when I get to the UK. At the moment, it looks like nothing. I hope I’ll be able to sort something out over the next 6 weeks or so which is when i will be available for work. And Kate is in the same position. I have two weeks left at work in NZ, then off to the UK briefly before the course in New York, and then … uncertainty. We’ll have to ride that out for a few weeks yet. Until then, packing, making the most of what Wellington has to offer, and getting to the finale of Battlestar Galactica. It’ll be good to have certainty in that at least.
Short post just to say that I’ll have a sole author Special Review paper published in the New Zealand Medical Journal on June 5th. More on the day, as it is embargoed until then.
I’m starting to get to grips with the process of managing my NZ business -Equanimity Limited – when overseas. I’m hoping my accountant will assist greatly with this, but the NZ Small Business Centre based at Radio NZ House in Wellington might be able to give me some tips too.
The Centre have been good at keeping in touch with me ever since I did a few business start-up courses with them (free) back in 2006. I’m on my way to a lunchtime meeting with them to discuss strategies for maintaining and growing the business while I am offshore.
Times certainly are a-changing.
So far, being 40 doesn’t seem too different from being 39. But I guess certain things will kick in. I have spent some time thinking about all the things I thought I might have done by the time I was 40, and all the things I have which I didn’t think of at all. I guess I do that on every birthday, but a change of decade is a different sort of marker. Maybe I’m not really noticing anything profound because I’m in the middle of a lot of other changes too – like moving back to London (for a while at least), introducing Kate to London living and my folks, preparing to go to New York for a training programme, and not having any kind of confirmed work or occupation at all after June 12. I think that’s quite enough to be going on with.
Kate arranged for us to go to the Shearer’s Quarters which was very pleasant but unfortunately had a preponderance of flies that kept appearing out of nowhere. I think this must be a recurring problem as a can of fly spray was readily to hand. We must have seen 200-300 of the blighters over the two days we were there. But it didn’t detract from a lovely weekend, chugging up to Woodville to see Kate’s ancestral home, Mount Bruce, and even a guest appearance by the Tui Girls who were on location at the Tui Brewery for a photoshoot. Even though the weather was miserable throughout, I enjoyed the weekend immensely, especially making friends with a Kokako who insisted on flying right up to my face, clinging on to the wire and whispering ‘ko-ka-ko’ when we went to that aviary.
The exciting bit was when I overheated in the magnificent bath and passed out on the floor when I got out. To be on the safe side, Kate and I went over to ED at Wairarapa Hospital (fortunately just down the road), as I was a little disoriented when I came round a few seconds after passing out. For a second or so, I actually thought I’d been to sleep, but couldn’t remember going to bed. They gave my blood pressure and pulse a work-up and also hooked me up to an ECG and I checked out fine. They even shaved bits of my chest so they could get a good read on the pads that fed into the ECG machine. It now itches like crazy and I look like a mangy cat.
An odd way to get a health check-up on the eve of my 40th birthday, but there it is.
I sorted that problem out from a few days ago by deleting the cache and also deleting one of two possible sitemap plug-ins I had installed by mistake. I think that has sorted the problem. Well, it is displaying in IE 6 correctly now – which it wasn’t doing before.
I’ve been in touch with the WHO over the past few weeks about possible further training opportunities for myself. They’ve come up with a few suggestions, including this course at the Centre for International Humanitarian Cooperation, affiliated with Fordham University in New York. The 12-day full-time course from 27 June to 8 July – Mental Health in Complex Emergencies – looks right up my street and will help me to develop my skills and knowledge in the area after running the Psychosocial support in emergency events’ workshops all over New Zealand recently.
I’ve been working on this for a few days now and I have managed to get myself enrolled on the course, and this afternoon have also secured funding for me to attend from London. I am just so totally happy that this is going to come off. It’s thrown a few other complications into the ring – for example, I’ve now changed my leaving date from Wellington to go to London to 19 June. But overall, it’s a great opportunity and I’m, very pleased I can make it work financially too.
Now, I just need the stars to come into alignment concerning that supposed job I have in London …
Hmmm. I’ve noticed that if I try to display my blog on another computer or browser, that it doesn’t display correctly and always seems to point at the same blog post in February? I’m not sure why this is. I might try and delete that post and re-upload it. I have tried deleting unused plug-ins, but no dice. I’ve noticed it has started to affect the blog hit-rate too.
I’ll try deleting that post and see what happens. I also have one particular post that seems to be a complete spam magnet. Anyone else get that on their self-hosted WP blog?
It has been more than a little hectic since I came back to NZ from Japan. When I left Tokyo for Wellington via Kansai and Auckland, Influenza A (H1N1) was really considered a threat only if you were traveling from Mexico or North America. Now, this is in danger of movingto Phase 6 Pandemic Alert, called by the WHO. I note though that Stephen McKernan, our Direct-General at the Ministry of Health here and the Minister of Health for the UK, Alan Johnson made calls at the World Health Assembly yesterday for pandemic phase changes now to take severity into account as well as how widespread the disease had become. The argument is that at this stage, the non-seasonal H1N1 virus does not seem to cause particularly severe symptoms (for most people). To divert production capacity from seasonal influenza vaccine production at this stage may put more people at risk than those who would be protected by a new non-seasonal flu vaccine now that the winter flu season in the southern hemisphere is well under way.
Another concern is the rapid increase in the number of cases being reported amongst high-school students the Kansai region of Japan. We can be pretty sure that this is the tip of the iceberg as many of those with mild symptoms will not have ben tested, and even though schools may have been closed, many students are still mixing together in local karaoke clubs.
I’ve been working hard here, including getting a briefing here at the Ministry of Health just two hours after getting off my flights from Japan. I have spent a little time working in the National Health Coordination Centre and contributed to providing occupational health advice for working in this setting. We now have 100-plus people rostered into this facility. I have also worked to provide psychosocial support guidance for those people affected by quaratine procedures.
The scenarios that every fears are probably one of the following: that H5N1 combines with Non-seasonal A H1N1 to produce a highly pathogenic flu strain with some resistance to tamiflu, or that Seasonal A H1N1 combines with the Non-seasonal A H1N1 virus. Although Non-seasonal A H1N1 is treatable with Tamiflu, seasonal A H1N1 is resistant.
In the meantime, the initial scramble to respond is over, at least in NZ. We’re now planning carefully to understand how we might best respond to various possible scenarios. I imagine most other national and international health organisations are doing the same.
It has to be considered somewhat ironic, that an event I have been assisting the NZ Government to prepare for, for the last three years, threatens to unfold while I am isolated by a blizzard in a small lakeside village in Hokkaido – Shikotsu-ko.
Although the snow eased off overnight, a good few inches fell in the hour or two it took me to get from Sapporo, out to here. I was aware of the Mexican cases before I left Sapporo yesterday, but you can imagine my surprise when I woke this morning and flicked on Japanese TV, only to see my boss, Steve Brazier, and the NZ Minister of Health holding a press conference. I couldn’t figure out what had happened, apart from Steve was dressed quite casually, I guess it had happened yesterday.
I managed to communicate to the absolutely delightful older Japanese woman who is running this hostel that I needed to use the internet, and she obliged me very happily. I found out about the 22 returning students from Mexico to NZ and how 2 people were hospitalised and the remaining few were in quarantine at home. I also heard that the possible death toll had risen from 60 to 81. I also remembered that the last pandemic in 1968 was thought to account for 1 million lives lost. The good news is that the current swine flu strain appears to be responding well to treatment by Tamiflu or Relenza, but not older drugs. The Japanese Government seem to have put in place some quite stringent screening at airport targeted towards people arriving from the Americas right now, but involving heat-screening scanners too, from what I can gather.
I guess there’s not a lot I can do right now. I’ll wait out my time here in Shikotsu and return to Tokyo on Wednesday to find out what is going on. I’m glad I ran all those psychosocial workshops before I left NZ and most regions in NZ have people who understand what to do to put in place best-practice psychosocial interventions.
I arrived in Tokyo on April 6, and I can scarcely believe it when I look at the calender and see that it is already April 24th. Where did the time go? I can’t believe my time here has whizzed by so completely. My mind is flicking forward to all the things I have to do when I get back to Wellington on May 1st, and in preparation to leave for London again on June 10.
But, lingering for a moment just on my last few days here, I have found my time at the National Institute of Mental Health to be very helpful and productive. It is both inspiring and reassuring to see that both NZ and Japan are using the IASC Guidlines to shape our work concerning psychosocial interventions in disasters. Dr Kim and Dr Suzuki have been great in letting me take their time, in explaining all the various different research and training they’re involved in. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Dr Yamada and Inagaki have been the perfect hosts, even taking me out to a Yakitori bar in a few minutes on my last night here in this part of Tokyo.
Tomorrow, I head out to Sapporo through Haneda Airport, for a night in that city, staying in a spa capsule hotel. Should be ‘an experience’. Saturday night in Sapporo should prove to be interesting too. After that, a few days rest and recharge in Shikotsu kohan, a small tourist village by a lake, framed by mountains and volcanoes, in a National Park, south of Sapporo.But it’s going to be cold, with temperatures around freezing at night, and around 10 degrees during the day.
I probably won’t have net access for a few days after tonight, but I’ll be back in Tokyo for one more night on April 29 before heading back to NZ. I’m sure time will continue to fly, but I’ll do my best to slow the clock and enjoy every last moment.
I’m a bit tired and templed-out, truth be told. Kyoto is beautiful and teeming with artisans and architects of old and new. But it is also a little overwhelming. I’m tired, so will blog over the next day or so when I have knocked off a bit of work over the next day or so in Tokyo.
For now, this feels like home – Tokyo, that is. What with all the traveling over the last month or so, I have almost spent as much time in this hotel in Kokubunji as I have in my own bed.
I have been reading Alex Kerr’s ‘Lost Japan’ on and off while I have been working and traveling here. It was first published in 1996, so it feels a little behind the times, but its difficult for me to tell. Just a hunch, I guess. One of the things he talks about is just how different Osaka is to other places in japan, which could be said to suffer from a certain homogeneity in behaviour and modern culture.
It’s often said that the people in Osaka can be said to exhibit a certain ‘joie de vivre’ and humour that is not present in other cities. And that has certainly been true in both this visit and my previous time here. It is interesting how many times i have been referred to as, ‘Monsieur’ in shops and cafes, and how many French as well as English themed cafes there are in Kansai, as I certainly noticed this in Kobe too.
The poster presentation Mitsu and Masatoshi put together (which I contributed to) went well at the Japanese Suicide Prevention Association Conference yesterday. I got some interesting questions about more broad issues such as the importance of spirituality to mental well-being, and how the NZ government thought about this or tried to promote this. A further conversation this morning made me realise what a tricky topic this is in japan, after the Allies insisted on a complete separation of religious activity and Government in forming the new constitution for Japan after the Second World War.
I met a lot of interesting and friendly people at the reception party and endured a lot of no-doubt impressive formal speeches, as is the Japanese way. I also made a few interesting connections which I will follow-up on when I get back to Tokyo on Tuesday. In the meantime, I’ll attend lunch at the conference today, and then wait for my friends Maki and Yas come to pick me up at 1.30. I met them as they put me up on the homestay programme last time I was in Osaka. We have kept in touch and they have invited me to go and stay with them again tonight. Last time, they took me to an onsen, the biggest sushi conveyor belt place I have ever seen, and an impressive temple. I wonder what they have in store for me this time?
Tomorrow: Kyoto.
I’m sat drinking a Coke Zero in a mall after my meeting with the Head of the UN Centre for Regional Development in Kobe, Japan. The days get more surreal as I continue my Fellowship here in Japan. I heard about some very interesting community development disaster work in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Niigata in Japan from Saito-san, who leads and coordinates all the action research work done in this area. She has a very cool job and must live in some kind of time warp with all that she has managed to achieve in the last 2.5 years.
This area of town also houses the WHO Knowledge Centre, which I am visiting later this afternoon before I head to Osaka and the Suicide Prevention Conference which is happening there over the next couple of days. I also visited Dr Kato and Dr Osawa at the Hyogo Institute for Traumatic Stress in HAT yesterday, as well the Disaster Reduction Museum – which is one of the better museums I have ever been to. But the initial sound a light show really is quite shocking – not something to go an watch if you’re of a nervous disposition. I found my heart racing just a few seconds in to it.
So far, I’ve been impressed by the quality of work and thinking I have seen, and the candour with which people have talked to me. Some have seen a little mystified as to why I wanted to meet with them, but the clouds seem to disappear once I mention the JSPS Fellowship. I’m not sure what that is about.
Its a bright sunny day here, so I think I might source a bit of sushi and sashimi from the super market next door and go for a walk by the water’s edge.
Speaking of active, I’m not doing nearly enough exercise. In fact,I’m not sure where to. I don’t seem to stay near any parks or open space, so unless I get up before dawn, there doesn’t seem to be any way of doing much in the way of running until I get to Hokkaido. What with my sedentary lifestyle here (apart from tramping the streets gawking at everything), and my rushing around NZ running workshops last month, I’ve noticed I’ve started to pack a little weight on. Will need to sort that out when I’m back in Wellington and nip that in the bud pronto.
Happy, yes. But need more active.
A quick update from Kobe – more tomorrow, or the next day when time allows for more than tweets and audio on the fly.
I’m having a morning of not doing much – currently typing this at a Doutor coffee shop just in the mall next to the station near me. Of the 100 or so people in here – I’m the only westerner. Kokubunji really is out in the sticks, so not many non-Japanese come out this way unless they have a reason to. But don’t think that means the density of population lets up any. Oh no. It’s just that everyone is Japanese.
Although I don’t feel quite the level of culture shock I have felt at other times (though I may have underestimated this), the vast array of stimuli have left my senses reeling. There is such a bewildering range of things to do, or experiences, that it takes quite a lot of effort to keep on top of things. I’m having to think quite carefully about pacing myself. I was pretty drained when I flew over from NZ, and I want o be able to return in a relaxed frame, not shredded out by attempting to do too much here.
Yesterday, I spent a good 6 hours in Shinjuku Gyoen at a hanami party (cherry blossom viewing), organised by my friend Ryoji. He’s a talented and thoroughly nice chap who is also the Editor of Japan Close-Up magazine – please take a peek. It was a fun day from 10-4pm, just hanging out and chatting, and walking around the magnificent park, taking in all the flowers, and all the people. All the people! There must have been hundreds of thousands of people in the park – it was just delightful – all enjoying a lovely sunny spring day in Tokyo. Japanese toddlers are so cute, I want to scoop them up and take them home. There. I sound like a broody American forty-something spinster on a kidnap scouting mission. Exactly the voice I was hoping to channel in this blog post.
A few people went on to the Hub English Bar for drinks, but they looked set for a big mission of drinking, and I just didn’t fancy it. I had a drink and carried on chatting for a while until about 6pm, when I headed out. After first going in 2006, and again in 2007, I returned to the Northern Observatory of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building for Gotham-esque views over night time Tokyo. I still haven’t made it to the Tokyo Tower actually. Must make some time to do that in my final week here.
Another Japanese curry later (I’m addicted – a veggie one this time. It’s hard to get enough veggies in japan), and I was on my way home to flop out. I’ve bought a couple of bits and pieces today, but pretty much taking it easy until I head to Takao at about 2pm.
Let me catch you up briefly in reverse order. Friday was melting in the heat of the lab all day while peer reviewing some protocols and papers on some of the suicide prevention work being coordinated and implemented here in Japan. Friday night was a very fun evening. After buying my Shinkansen (bullet train) tickets from Tokyo to Kobe and back from Kyoto to Tokyo, me and my colleagues went to a Korean BBQ place in Kokubunji. I tried all sorts of delicious cuts of beef from parts of a cow that I’d rather not know about if I’m honest. And also some very drinkable Korean Rice Wine, kind of milky in appearance and sweet in taste. Very drinkable and fortunately only 6% alcohol. i liked it so much, I took a bottle for my contribution to the hanami party. Tasted just as good second time around. The team members were playful and friendly and called my ‘Sarb-chan’ instead of ‘Sarb-san’. ‘Chan’ is far more affectionate and I was touched. We made speeches, I gave presents and we ate and got tiddly and laughed. I could do that night again and again.
Thursday morning, I worked at my hotel before heading into the city to enjoy the geekzone that is Akihabara. I’d forgotten just how much a sense of being battered around the head with a Playstation playing some death splatter game on full volume you get when you spend too much time in that place. Although it was fun to people watch and gadget browse, I had to keep ducking into small quiet alleys in order not to smash the speakers that were playing the same short jingle again and again and again and again and AGAIN. I bought a Casio Exilim EX-V8 camera. It’s a discontinued model, but it has a great movie mode and an internal optical 7x zoom which you can also use in movie mode. The price was a bargain, so I couldn’t say no. Took some finding though. 
Wednesday night was baseball night at the Tokyo Dome where I met Ryoji. We watched the Fighters take apart the Marines, before the Marines fought back in a close homerun heavy match which finished 8-7 to the fighters. Here’s a little taste of the atmosphere from the game – which was really entertaining.
Fighter v Marines
I’m going to try and catch a game in Koshien Park when I am based in Kobe from Monday to Thursday. That could be a bit of a challenge though. Tokyo is pretty cushy for foreigners as there are far more English sings than there used to be. I’ve heard its not like that in Kobe or Osaka. We’ll see. But I’d better memorise the Kanji for ‘Male Toilet’ pretty quickly.
Right. I’m off to …. well, just seat here peacefully for a wee while.
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