A Hawaii visit

Since I came back to Japan, I felt that the US is mentally closer to Japan than the UK. The news from the UK are quite limited in Japan. (It seems that the Japanese are only interested in the Queen about the UK.) Now I know nothing about what happened to the house price in the UK, how unpopular the British prime minister is, and the degree of financial impact from the global economy crisis to the UK universities, and so on. Britain is becoming a far west country to me day by day. It is as if everything was a dream, such as the white cliff of Dover, the Jurassic Coast of Charmouth, etc..

I received an invitation letter to a joint meeting between American and Japanese Physical Societies, which will be held in Hawaii in October. This will be my first participation to an international workshop as a Japanese academic. During my stay in the UK, I only visited the US once, to attend the Gordon research conference, held in New Hampshire. I felt that crossing the Atlantic was nothing in comparison to the Pacific crossing, which is equivalent to the Date line crossing, that is, a kind of time travel back to "yesterday".

Under the Bush administration, the Americans looked so fragile to me. The gigantic and monsterous size of 4WDs are symbolic: it seems they don't care about the environmental problems at all. In addition, their invasion to Iraq seemed to be another proof that they are only interested in oil. So I had not been keen to visit and see the US last 10 years.

Of course, the change came with Obama. I am now keen to see the change in the US with much hope. Considering that Japan has just changed last week, what is happening after Bush is quite interesting to me now.

However, it is Hawaii where I visit this time. Tropical islands of the world famous resort and touring place. Can this island be called the solid US land, or a "colony" to Japanese tourists instead? If the latter is the case, it would be so hard to glimpse what has been changed with Obama.

Saying good bye to Britain

I decided to leave the UK, for a promotion to be an associate professor in Japan, after about eight years in the UK.

My new life starts in Tokyo soon.