Sometimes sport gets in the way of sleep, other times sleep gets in the way of sport. England v Mexico

I am, I confess, jolly tired today; I have been so ever since I woke up and will be so until my head hits the pillow again for slumber's sweet refrain to collect me from reality.

The reason for my lack of energy is due to sport!  Yes, sport. That may have surprised you, but I stayed up late to watch the British Grand Prix, back in dear old Blighty.  I then got up early to watch the England football match in the World Cup, all the way from America.  It was a good match, and Mexico played well, I thought, although not as well as 'our boys' as the score line can testify. Kane and Bellingham did the necessary for England, and Jimenez and some chaps whose names I've forgotten scored for Mexico. 

The rest of the day was filled with doing a celebratory jig in the bathroom, a wander to Circular Quay, a nip round to Darling Harbour, a saunter to the Maritime Museum, and watching two big cruise ships in different places in the harbour. 

It was another damp and somewhat chilly day, the temperature struggled to climb to 14 degrees, and had I not known it was winter downunder, I would surely have been disappointed. When one thinks of Australia, one mostly thinks of long hot days of golden sun, frolicking on the beach, and Neighbours! One doesn't usually think of seasons much like ours, just the wrong way round. Or, maybe you do, maybe when someone says Australia to you, the first thing that jumps into your noggin is cold winters and a climate similar to Italy!

That's all for today..... Copyright © 2026 Seafront Media

The furthest you can go and walking in the rain.

It's been a cold day here in Sydney, just reaching around 14c on the old thermometer thingamajig. There were quite a few police units around the city when I went for a walk earlier today. Apparently, according to the news, the Prime Minister was in town today for the Labour Party conference. I'm rather shocked and perhaps saddened to admit that I had to look up who the Prime Minister of Australia was. I'm usually so good at those sorts of things, but I guess I missed the appointment of Anthony Albanese, who has been in said job since May 2022. I remember some of the previous incumbents of that position, including: anglophobic Malcolm Turnbull, ineffectual Tony Abbott, the first female PM, Julia Gillard - who incidentally actually came from Wales, some bloke called John who was in office longer than Maggie Thatcher, and Bob Hawke, who always reminded me of Liberace!

In the morning, I walked to Circular Quay, just to watch the ferries go about their business for a wee while. I can't say how long I was there, for time just evaporates when there is no pressing need to look at the clock, or watch, or more likely these days - the mobile phone! After a bit, I looked at the ferry map for the longest route, and that was the very next ferry I would take.  Parramatta - here I come. I loved the journey, in fact, I liked the journey more than the destination, but sometimes that is the way of it, the doing is better than the arriving. Although I'm not saying Parramatta was bad, I'm just saying the bits I saw were not excessively interesting; however, having said that, I did find the coloured glass awning around part of the New South Wales Police HQ rather impressive. 

It was raining when I took the ferry back to Circular Quay, and it was still raining when I walked back from the Quay to the hotel. Day had already turned to dusk, or perhaps beyond, with night starting to reclaim the day, allowing lights to shimmer and shine on the wet surfaces. I rather like walking in the rain - but let that be our little secret because if you tell people you like walking in the rain, they tend to think you are a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic or the lift doesn't quite go to the top floor!

Dinner was, if you're remotely interested, salad and a milk bun. I confess, I'm rather taken with the Australian milk bun, which admittedly is little more than a white bread roll, it still has a rather nice taste to it!.

 

That's all for today..... Copyright © 2026 Seafront Media

Typhoon number 6 Jangmi

During the last day or two of May and the first couple of days in June, Typhoon number 6, called Jangmi, blew its way here, causing record-breaking rainfall, flooding, and quite a lot of disruption in many areas of Japan.

Morning world....here comes Jangmi.  Photo Jason Shaw

Jangmi, a Koren girls name which translates to Rose, a somewhat benign name for a storm that was anythng but. It affected Okinawa, Kyushu, Shikoku, and western Japan. According to the local news channels, it was a particularly powerful Typhoon, with strong winds, around 126 kph with gusts up to 180 kph, that's 78 and 112 mph! Travel was widely disrupted, some 524 domestic and 92 international flights were cancelled and numerous train services either halted or delayed.

Typhoon number six whilst having a morning cuppa.

The storm produced record rainfall in a number of regions, and there was some flooding and damage. According to News on Japan, 1.6 million people in the Tokyo metropolitan area were affected by official warnings; indeed, some parts of the city had Tokyo’s first-ever Purple Level 4 (Urgent warning - all residents should evacuate from affected area, when or before Evacuation Instruction is issued). The area where my apartment is located, just across the river from Chuo City, four streets away from Sumida City, Koto was in a level 3 warning area, but I had no plans to go out.  The day before, I'd purchased enough food and supplies for three days, including food that didn't need to be cooked or heated up in case of power outages. I've lived through the so called great storm of '87 in the UK, a Super Derencho in Illinois, USA in 2009, a 7.9 eartquake in December last year whilst enjoying my first visit to this fine country. Yet, I'd never been through a Typhoon, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

Even during a typhoon the expressway is busy  Photo Jason Shaw

  

Opps,  I went out on the balcony in my slippers, I'm so naughty!

and wind was the answer, a rather lot of each and then a wee bit more of both and guess what, even when I thought it was over a whole lot more came from the skies. As the day passed into afternoon, the typhoon had moved up and venturing out, I was greeted by a surprisingly pleasent early evening. In fact, if you'd been asleep all day and just came out after 17:00 you'd be forgiven for thinking nothing but a brief shower had occured. 

Sumida River - the calm after the storm.  Photo Jason Shaw

A poets view, a perch up high, refreshed anew, water drips from the sky  Photo Jason Shaw

In the olden days you could see Mount Fuji from that bridge. Photo Jason Shaw

The river seems high, the cloud breaks. Photo Jason Shaw

A ripple of light is a right good sight on a cloudy day.  Photo Jason Shaw

Eitai Bridge over the Sumida River. Photo Jason Shaw

The typhoon is blowing away as the skies clear.  Photo Jason Shaw

Watching the clouds pass  Photo Jason Shaw

You'd hardly believe more than 7 inches of rain had fallen in 24 hours.  Photo Jason Shaw

Its almost sunset time.  Photo Jason Shaw

Can you see the bird?  Photo Jason Shaw

Clouds and dreams. Photo Jason Shaw

A view to the back side of the departing Jangmi.  Photo Jason Shaw

That's all for today..... Copyright © 2026 Seafront Media

Lets take a walk and go and get lost

Walking, walking, and more walking.

One of the main activities of my time in Tokyo has been walking. I’ve walked to Ginza, to Asakusa, to Akihabara, to Ojima, to Kachidoki, to Shimbashi, to Shiomi and all places in between. I’ve not quite made it to Minato City for Tokyo Tower or Edogawa for Arakawa River yet, but who knows, maybe next week I’ll venture that far out.

Keeping fit is one of the reasons for me electing to use my own two legs as my main method of transport, rather than the epically proportioned rail and subway networks of Tokyo. The other, and perhaps the main reason, could be called sightseeing, although for me it is slightly more a case of seeing life going on around me, rather than spotting typical tourist sights, which sightseeing usually conveys. My eyes are sweeping along the various streets, roads, and avenues that my feet are walking down. I’m gazing at the restaurants offering a multitude of cuisines, many displaying pictures of meals served. I see the stores selling household supplies are commonplace, whereas clothes retailers tend to be mainly in the shopping centres. Another, conceivably surprising addition to the Tokyo scene is the proliferation of European-style bakeries making a variety of cakes and pastries at high prices, which are popular with the well-heeled ladies of the city, especially at the weekends. The queue outside my local one is always nine or ten deep, fragrant ladies under parasols.

I enjoy walking off the main thoroughfares just as much, down those narrower streets, where houses are cheek by jowl, where pavements are just differentiated from the highway by a white line. One of the charms of these less busy streets is the remarkably different styles of architecture that complement each other. There are funky new apartment blocks next to vintage machiya - small, mostly wooden townhouses, just over the road from an abode that looks somewhat like an akiya (old vacant property).  Then, just when you least expect it is a shrine, complete with banners, stone animals, and an ink stamp in a box. You might think it is someone's drive, but if you look carefully, you’ll often find that shadowy uneven ground is actually an entrance to a small but peaceful park.

Over the last few days, I’ve spent a lot of time walking down streets like that. I’ve gone out with just a phone, a packet of Polos, and a plan of having no plan! I left the mobile internet Wi-Fi thingamabob behind as I didn’t want to rely on Google Maps or other such location-finder apps to influence my wandering. I don’t have mobile internet on my phone – well, I do, but I can’t afford to use it on my current plan whilst in Japan! Plus, if it didn’t have a pedometer and audiobook app on my phone, I’d have left it on the side in my apartment as well. For more than seven hours over the last three days, I’ve wandered about freely, deciding which direction to turn at every crossroads only when I get to it, and happily getting lost. Every now and then, I can honestly say that getting lost is the most fun.  I advise you to do it, no, really, go and get lost sometime this week!

That's all for today..... Copyright © 2026 Seafront Media

Insomnia in the city.....

Insomnia and me are no strangers, indeed, you might say we are old friends, we’ve been acquainted since I was a sulky schoolboy in sleepy Surrey. For me, it comes and goes; it arrives unannounced, stays around for a week or so before it pops off again. There is no way I can tell when this old mate will show up, stomping about in my head, throwing things hither and dither and generally being annoying.

Shin-Ohashi Bridge as dusk is just about to fall.

I had regular bouts as a teenager and during college, then he disappeared for a long while before coming back in my late twenties. I don’t remember him visiting during my thirties, although, if I’m completely honest, I can actually recall a lot of details about those years.  I didn’t have many periods in my forties, although working twelve-hour night shifts on a four-on, four-off basis plays hell with the normal sleep pattern anyway. After I stopped earning a crust in the darkest hours before and just a tingly bit after dawn, I’ve had regular periods of sleepless nights. Usually it is when my world turns upside down, and daytime seems sleepy bye-byes time, and at night, it's wakey wakey after midnight.  Sometimes there have been reasons for it, job stress, end of relationships, death, illness and that sort of malarkey and other times, there seems to be no reason, none at all.

For the last few nights, he’s been back, the first time since I’ve been in Japan and about as welcome as a glass of Andrews Liver Salts when you’ve got the trots!.  Actually, yesterday that was also the case, I had both a sleepless night and a butt that was almost permanently on the heated seat of my class A loo.  The tummy trouble was, I’m pretty sure, due to consuming four cans of a ‘sugar-free’ alcoholic beverage as well as polishing off a tube of ‘sugar-free’ mints. Accidentally overdosing on sorbitol can have a laxative effect; well, it certainly does on me, as yesterday can attest to.

Clear skies and gentle breezes

I did manage to head to the supermarkets today for a stock up and also a walk around the neighbourhood.  I enjoyed a lunch on the river terrace watching the boats go up and down the river, and after returning home, I sat on the balcony and again watched boats go down and up the river, until the sun started to set.

Now, as the clock ticks onwards to midnight, my mind is not in the least bit sleepy and is racing away to various subjects and topics. Indeed in the last twenty-four minutes, I’ve contemplated buying a new camera, which shop to get the tax refunded, potatoes ‘n’ mint with the possibility of growing one or the other or both on the balcony, where to buy a bag of compost, can kiwis fly, how many steps it is to the nearest vending machine that takes IC cards, what liquid refreshment to have next!

So, as the week rapidly races to its end, this sleepy insomniac is wondering if he should go for a walk before midnight to tire even further achy bones to encourage sleep to arrive before four in the morning. Or stand on the balcony and watch the last of the river traffic heading back to its mooring while I wait for the timely dew of sleep, falling with soft slumbrous weight, inclines my eyelids!

Pretty hydrangeas and other lovely flowers offer food for the soul.

Matsuo Basho keeps a lookout up the river. On a clear day, in days of old, you can see Mount Fuji

Who can say what dreams were made this day?

That's all for today..... Copyright © 2026 Seafront Media