National Health Care, For The Win!

As many of you probably know, I'm really great at being sick. If they had awards for it I might be able to squeeze one out. Usually, at about this time every winter I end up with my standard illness. Sometimes it's just a cold, sometimes it decided to grow into a sinus infection, but it always follows the same progression of steps. At any point I can usually tell what's going to happen next, and so usually I don't think too much of the whole "being sick" thing. Much to my mother's shagrin this also means that I don't usually go to the doctor when it doesn't go away.

However, this morning I woke up without being able to hear as much as I usually can out of my left ear. In the past, this has meant that I have a sinus infection (don't ask my why disabled-hearing = sinusitis, but it does). So I decided what the heck, I'll go to the doctor.

Quick Side Story:
When I was going through the necessary procedures to register as a student resident in Japan I registered for the national health care plan (our program requires all students to do so). Each month it costs my around $15, and by being on the plan it automatically reduces my cost of getting health care by 70%, and I'm not even a citizen!

Anyway, so at 9 o'clock this morning my host mother and I did headed off to the doctor. The place we went to was just a general doctor's office, no specialties. After a brief wait we entered his office, he said "So what's up?", and did the typical quick check that I was still alive. From there, he then sent us off to an ear/nose specialist (it's just ear and nose in Japan, not ear/nose/throat). Turns out this doctor was in the bigger hospital. Once there I had to fill out some more paperwork (there's always paperwork), and then after a bit more waiting we saw Doctor #2. She again asked me what was wrong, and then looked in my ears and nose to find that they were indeed filled with gunk.

Up until this point all of the doctors had been speaking entirely Japanese, and surprisingly I had been able to follow them and describe my symptoms. After poking around my ears and nose I expected this doctor to either ask more questions or deliver instructions, but she did neither. Instead, without a word she just grabbed a funnel, stuck it up my nose and inserted a thing, transparent tube up my nasal canal. She then hit a button, and quite literally vacuumed out all of the general nastiness that filled my nose and ears. It was among the strangest nose-related feelings I've had, although I was definitely cleared out afterward. In retrospect, I'm glad that I wasn't giving a warning, but for some reason it still felt a bit like a cheap shot.

Past-cleaning she sent us off to wait again, until Medical Professional #3 came to get me for a hearing test. Apparently this is standard when you get any sort of head-related illness in Japan, and after the nice little vacuuming I could hear everything just fine. Another wait, and once again we were back at Doctor #2. She said that I probably had sinusitis (thankfully she knew this word in English) and wrote up some prescriptions. A quick stop by the drug store, and I had my medicine within 15 minutes of leaving the hospital.

Overall it was good as doctor's visits go, but what blew my mind at the end of the day was the price. I had seen two different doctors, received a test, had my sinuses completely cleaned out, and filled four different prescriptions. Imagine my surprise when the combined cost of everything was about $50. You can barely fill one prescription in the us for $50, let alone go to two doctors and then some! I have to say, for all the pros and cons that Japan may have, national health care is definitely a pro. Here's to hoping that we get this in the US sometime soon....

Hello Kitty and Midterms

The only defense that I really have for not having written anything in the past two weeks is that this past week happened to be when almost all of my midterms exams fell (most people have them spread out over a couple weeks), so I've been suddenly busy with school work/studying. In the past week I've had 2 tests, 2 papers, 1 presentation and 4 quizzes. Surprisingly though, this stress level was still low compared to the academic rigor at K, but nonetheless I had a lot of preparation to do.

Outside of that however, it's been a fairly regular two weeks. The most interesting occurrence happened last Sunday. Jeric (a good friend and the only other K College student here) managed to acquire two ticket to a symphony concert in Tama-Center, so we hopped on the train and off we went. Upon arriving, I found out that Tama-Center is apparently the homeland of Hello Kitty, and it looked the part. It was almost like being in an amusement park: the buildings were all conspicuously picturesque, decorations and lights abounded, and cute Hello Kitty signs were strategically places throughout the pedestrian streets to point you in the direction of all buildings-of-note in the area. After a bit of exploration, we discovered an actual amusement park, various performance spaces, and an enormous and gorgeous park that was tucked a small stroll off the main area (pictures shown below).

Oh, and we did eventually go see the symphony play. The repertoire was all over the place: Beethoven, Brahms and Tchaikovsky, but it was pretty good. Also, it was the first time Jeric had ever been to a symphonic concert, so he enjoyed at least getting the experience, and we both agreed the Tchaikovsky was cool. 

One of the streets

The Amusement Park: Saurio Puroland

One little section of the enormous and beautiful park

みかんや家族 (Clementines, Family, and the like)

This Sunday I went to a town called Yokohama (横浜) which is wear the majority of my host mom's family lives. My host brother had a competitive soccer-related event and my parents went with him, so it was just my host sister and I. We left the house at a refreshing 7:45 in the morning on Sunday and after a few train transfers and roughly 1.5 hours, we arrived at our destination.

We were greeted at the station by most of the people who I would end up seeing that day. For the sake of convenience, I will refer to familial relations as if I were actually a member (ie. Kaho will now be referred to as my "sister", host-mother as "mother", etc.). So here is the group that met us at the station:

Aunt: I can't remember her name, but mom's older sister picked us up there
Hasashi: Uncle, mom's younger brother
Ayane: Cousin (Aunt's daughter), son's birthday was yesterday, providing the occasion for us to visit
Haru: Cousin (Uncle's daughter), approximately 12 years of age
Sou: Cousin (Uncle's son), approximately 7 years of age
Ukyou: Second cousin (Ayane's son). Turned 5 yesterday

Don't worry if the family tree seems difficult to keep track of: it is. Either way, the underlying point is that we had quite the group to greet us upon arrival.

The very first thing we did after that was head to the mikan (みかん) fields. Mikan are essentially clementines (I'm actually not sure if there is a difference, they taste about the same), and apparently Yokohama is famous for them. It's rather reminiscent apples in Michigan actually. There was a big field absolutely field with clementine trees, and everybody was given a bag and free reign to run through and pick/eat whatever they wanted. As we entered, we ran into an older gentleman who seemed to know a lot about clementine horticulture: signs of sweetness, which trees were best, and so on. As we were picking he came by us at one point and mentioned that the clementines at the top of the tree were always the sweetest.

Now, given this new tidbit of information, how else was I supposed to respond than by immediately climbing as high as I could in the tallest tree I could find? What else would we do, have sub-optimal climentines!? I think not (although fortunately for me, clementine trees are rarely more than 10 feet tall). If I had photographic evidence of this adventure I would share it; it must have looked rather humorous. Regardless, it was a lot of fun, and the high-up clementines sure were delicious, although I can't be sure if they actually tasted different of the struggle just added to their sweetness.

The clementine field in Yokohama.

After clementine-picking, we went to a variety of seemingly-unrelated stores that together formed an errand-running excursion for Ukyou's 5th birthday party. We eventually went back to Ukyou/Akane's house and began getting everything ready. As preparations were being made I met a few more people: Grandmother (who's name I never learned), Akane's husband Yuta, and a seemingly-unrelated high school boy name Reika (or something like that (in case you haven't guessed yet, I'm bad with names, particularly Japanese ones)). The party consisted of a barbecue, other general foods, and typical family mingling. It was very small scale, by no means elaborate, and yet really nice. We all sat around the food while chatting and enjoying the company (I also lost a few times at arm wrestling to the other men in the room). Everything continued on in this fashion until the time came for us to head back, at which point we hopped on the train, I immediately fell asleep, and then a few hours later we arrived home.

All in all everybody was very nice and interesting to talk too. I realized that yesterday was actually the first day I've been in Japan were I haven't spoken more than a sentence or two of English. While I only speak Japanese with my host family, I'm almost always speaking English at school or with my friends in the program. Yesterday, however, it was all Japanese (minus a few sentences of English when talking politics with the uncle). It was a great way to spend a Sunday, and I'm definitely looking forward to the next chance I have to visit them all again.

Waseda Festival

Unfortunately, after the retreat in Karuizama, in which 34 students slept in close quarters and stayed up late for several nights with a significant disregard for health, I fell down with a bit of a cold this week. At this point I'm essentially past it, although I still maintain the cough that I always have after being sick, but the general level of health is pretty good. 元気だよ。The week was fairly mundane, but excitement came with the weekend.

This weekend's big event was 早稲田祭, which basically translated to Waseda Festival. Around this time of the year, the majority of universities have some sort of festival. As far as I can tell this is something that doesn't happen in the US. Universities might have festivals for some reason or another, but these festivals are just basically a celebration of the universities, no other reason required. However, these aren't university-only affairs. Being that Waseda is one of the most prestigious universities in Japan, it's festival draws a crowd of roughly 100,000 people every year and has all of the necessary staples: A performance or two by famous individuals, several stages of performances happening all day, tons of food stands and a special brand of density that can only be found at big festivals.

The festival before it got particularly crowded

Among the many performance at the festival was the juggling group that I have joined. While I am definitely not a performance level (compared to the rest of the group here), I still was with the group for a good portion of the weekend. All day Friday was spent helping them "setup" for Saturday's performances. This basically involved 7 hours of juggling, with maybe 2 hours of actual setup-related work being done, but it was a good way to spend a free Friday. Our group basically had an off-the-main-path performance space completely to ourselves for the entire day, and the range of performances throughout the day Saturday drew quite the crowd. After I had my fill of other festivities at the festival, I came back and helped draw people in to come see is. It was actually really fun, especially since everybody passing by seemed pretty surprised that I knew the necessary Japanese to say "Come watch us juggle!".

The following day (Sunday), there was not setup necessary: the group had a spot on one of the central stages for an hour. I watched the show with the other non-performing members of the group, and it was tremendously well done and fun. I'm definitely stealing many of the ideas I've seen in the juggling group and bringing them back to the circus back at K. That night the group essentially rented out a bar and had a party to celebrate the end of the festival, which is the last big event for the year (even though the academic year doesn't end until the beginning of February). That party was fun for many reasons, the main of which was that the Japanese students were definitely more talkative and willing to interact with me and the other international student after a couple drinks.

One of the routines performed on center stage. Note (and be appropriately amazed): 3 people, 9 diabolos. 

To me, that's one of the greatest things about shows and their subsequent celebrations: the tendency to bring everyone involved together. It's one of the reasons that I'm involved with performing groups back at K, and I'm glad to see that it transfers across cultural borders. Needless to mention that while I definitely did not have a relaxing weekend, it was definitely an enjoyable one.