My mom left from Japan on Monday and it has been a couple of crazy, crazy weeks. First of all, my Mom came (yay) and there were lots of parties for her and in between these parties we went traveling. We went to Beppu and climbed a mountain swarming with monkeys and saw the 8 hells of Beppu, which are active volcanic hot springs that you can only view. We went to Fukuoka for the sole purpose of eating ramen. We went to Nagasaki and saw ground zero where the atomic bomb dropped and saw the only place open to foreigners for hundreds of years in Japan. We traveled to many other places, but unfortuately, for most of her stay, I was sick, feeling like someone hit my face with a baseball bat.
On her last day, I insisted she try a Japanese hot spring (onsen), which are very popular here. This is a place where you bathe in hot mineral water with nothing but a face towel and others of your same gender. First of all, I walked into the men`s part of the onsen on accident, oops, then they shut the door on me. Too late I saw them! My mom was laughing at me so hard that she locked herself in the bathroom for like 10 minutes to laugh (good call since laughing in a place where everyone is naked might cause confusion). Then we soaked in the hot spring, but I didn't like it. I've only been to 2 other onsens and this one was the worst; it wasn't very inviting. Afterwards, I turned white and felt myself gagging to throw up; heat stroke? The ladies around me asked if I was ok. I kept repeating to myelf "Don`t pass out naked." The only thing that stopped me was sheer will power and splashing water on my face. I felt better afterwards, but was really dehydrated.
The day she left I got really sick again and on Thursday my school sent me to a hospital. They thought I had the flu. Turns out I just had a common cold and some stomach virus that starts with an E (not e coli). So now I'm taking 8 different medicines, I don't know what they are, but they have names like Biofermin, EK-29, S-06 and 27. Here in Japan, they treat each symptom separately, and the dosages are weak, so people inevitably end up taking tons of medicine for things like the common cold. My doctor said he believes in Eastern medicine and said that these are Eastern....I don't know about that... Why would they have names like Biofermin, EK-29, S-06 and 27? Shouldn't they be names like feng wa shu or shi shi wao? Maybe he's thinking of a different Eastern country. What the heck country is east of Japan? Oh yeah it's America. So I must be taking good old Western medicine. Ah, the world makes sense again.
On her last day, I insisted she try a Japanese hot spring (onsen), which are very popular here. This is a place where you bathe in hot mineral water with nothing but a face towel and others of your same gender. First of all, I walked into the men`s part of the onsen on accident, oops, then they shut the door on me. Too late I saw them! My mom was laughing at me so hard that she locked herself in the bathroom for like 10 minutes to laugh (good call since laughing in a place where everyone is naked might cause confusion). Then we soaked in the hot spring, but I didn't like it. I've only been to 2 other onsens and this one was the worst; it wasn't very inviting. Afterwards, I turned white and felt myself gagging to throw up; heat stroke? The ladies around me asked if I was ok. I kept repeating to myelf "Don`t pass out naked." The only thing that stopped me was sheer will power and splashing water on my face. I felt better afterwards, but was really dehydrated.
The day she left I got really sick again and on Thursday my school sent me to a hospital. They thought I had the flu. Turns out I just had a common cold and some stomach virus that starts with an E (not e coli). So now I'm taking 8 different medicines, I don't know what they are, but they have names like Biofermin, EK-29, S-06 and 27. Here in Japan, they treat each symptom separately, and the dosages are weak, so people inevitably end up taking tons of medicine for things like the common cold. My doctor said he believes in Eastern medicine and said that these are Eastern....I don't know about that... Why would they have names like Biofermin, EK-29, S-06 and 27? Shouldn't they be names like feng wa shu or shi shi wao? Maybe he's thinking of a different Eastern country. What the heck country is east of Japan? Oh yeah it's America. So I must be taking good old Western medicine. Ah, the world makes sense again.
