Over the past few years I’ve had a relatively painless time with all the travelling I do. Sure, I’ve had my share of delayed flights (usually from Copenhagen into London) but rarely anything more serious. The worst was dropping my keys on a plane and not realising until getting to the car park and returning to the terminal after that airline had closed up shop for the night.

However, this trip to the US and Japan seems to be making up for the good luck I’ve enjoyed over the last couple of years.

We start with my flight from London to Boston for the “Security and Human Behaviour” conference. Since I try to fly Star Alliance there isn’t a direct flight from London so I had to come via Philadelphia with US Airways. On arrival at Heathrow I was given the third degree by the airline staff on “security” questions. I figured out after a couple more questions than usual that this was probably because I had a one way ticket. Anyway, a printout of the conference schedule showing my name on one of the items, plus my business card and details of my onward flight out to Toronto then Tokyo finally convinced them I wasn’t a terrorist planning to blow up the plane or an illegal immigrant planning to overstay my visa waiver. Having gone through this I get to the check-in desk to be told the plane is three hours delayed (I could have waited at home for those three hours instead of in Heathrow’s lounge). I also had a “middle seat” on the transatlantic leg, which isn’t my preferred option since I like to get up and move around, access my overhead luggage etc. In the end it was four hours due to take-off slots so I missed the re-booked connection in Philadelphia. However, it wasn’t all appalling since I did make it to Boston that night, though it was after 1:00 when I got to my hotel. While I don’t sleep well in strange places not getting to bed in Boston until the equivalent of 6:00 UK time didn’t make me any more alert the following morning for the conference. The conference in Boston went well, though and I got up rather early to make my connection to Toronto for my trip to Japan. Once more my seat for the transpacific leg was a “middle” one, but the plane was full so they couldn’t find me an aisle. I asked about a mile upgrade in Toronto but Business Class was full as well. There was a party of about forty Japanese schoolchildren in the boarding area so I figure that was the reason the plane was so absolutely full.

I got a snack in Toronto while waiting for boarding, and picked up some gifts for people in Japan. I also picked up a snack to take aboard with me. I’m getting a bit paranoid since the flight out to Japan in March where I couldn’t eat any of the entrees of the meals (one of beef, ham and seafood featuring in all of them). While we waited on the tarmac I munched on some sweets and broke a tooth. This was one I’d broken before and had a filling, but another chunk of it had come away along with the filling. The flight was on time, though and I got to Tokyo OK, to be picked up at the airport by my friend Tamie-san, though as I posted before I arrived with only one of my two hold luggage items. That arrived with me a couple of days later so wasn’t too bad, but still something I could have done without.

Things went OK apart from the tooth being sensitive and I knew I’d have to have it dealt with. I’m here until mid-September and that’s too long to leave a sharp half-tooth with its core exposed. Checking with the University travel insurance I had it confirmed they’d probably pay for the treatment and I found a dentist in Ginza who promised that they spoke English and got an appointment last Thursday (10th July). They advised that I needed a crown and that to fit a temporary crown they’d have to do a root canal. Now, I’ve had a number of root canal fillings before but they’ve all been on teeth that have had at least one and often more than one abcess in them, so the nerve was mostly dead. Despite the decay leading to the loss of over half the upper part of this tooth, the nerve was apparently still going strong, as I found when they drilled in and starting removing it. As is my wont I refused anesthesia for the treatment. I think they’ll be talking for a while about the crazy gaijin who had a root canal without getting numbed up. Still, it’s bearable and I’ve just about got used to the feeling of a slightly over-large crown in place of my tooth. I’ve got another crown to get fitted when I get back to the UK in the autumn, but I don’t know if they’ll replace the one I got here then or leave it for a while.

So, that was Thursday, but the tale of woe goes on. On Friday morning I found a tender spot on the back of my right thigh. I thought it was just a zit that had been irritated by the two and a half hours I’d spent in the dentists chair so mostly ignored it. By Saturday morning it was clear I’d been bitten by something, though as it had come up in a lump surrounded by irritated flesh. I went to the National Park for Nature Study in Meguro on Saturday with a friend. It was nice in the park under the trees but the walk from Meguro station was brutal. This summer has been horrendously hot even for Tokyo. During our walk around the park I got bitten on the neck by a mosquito and stung on the back of my left hand by a plant. Japanese nature doesn’t like me this year.

By the time we got back to my place in Ogawamachi, I really needed to get some medication for things so my friend did translation duty for me at the local pharmacy and we got some ibuprofen and a cream for rashes.

The back of my left hand was quite bad on Sunday, though the mosquito bite on the neck responded well to the cream. The back of my hand improved by Monday, though so the cream was working with that, too. I wish I could say the same for the bite on my leg, which continued to get worse and worse. Eventually last night I decided I would have to go to a doctor and my academic host, Prof Murata did me the favour this morning of booking me into a dermatology clinic in Roppongi HIlls (in the Roppongi HIlls Clinic as it happens). The doctor confirmed my diagnosis of an infected insect bite and said she’d need to cut into it to clean it out properly (I’m not daft enough to get that done without a local, though). However, the skin was too hard for her to do it today. She’s given me antibiotic pills, strong painkillers, steroid pills and antibiotic ointment to go directly onto the wound (that’s now all I can call a fully ulcerated swelling most of an inch across). I’ve to go back next week to get things cleaned up properly.

I’m pretty sure this will be covered by the travel insurance but even if not, it’s bearable expense anyway, a few hundred pounds for the dental treatment and the same for the medical treatment.

I do hope that’s my lot for serious problems on this trip. I’ve got the return plane trip to Denver for Worldcon at the beginning of next month, and next week I’m off to Kyoto for a few days. Despite all this I’m enjoying being back in Tokyo. I just wish all the hassle wasn’t slowing down the work I’m here to do. Still, with the help from the doctor I managed to get some work done today despite all the problems and one of the papers still outstanding from last year is now formatted for submission and I’m just waiting a piece of advice from the journal before submitting it. I should be able to get the other paper from last year’s work completed shortly, too, and we’ve got an exciting programme of research put together for the summer, looking at student attitudes to self-revelation online and e-democracy in Japan and the UK. Meanwhile I’ve got a paper on Privacy Engineering and a book chapter proposal on ethics in virtual worlds to put together, so I’m not short of things to do.