Japan Day 4 - Tofu and Antibiotics
Konichiwa. Well, there isn't a great deal to tell you about yesterday, so I may have to pad the blog post out with a gradual increase in font size. I was ill for much of yesterday.
Having taken three days to get over the jet lag, to get ill on the fourth day was unfortunate, to say the least.
The day started off well enough - breakfast in the hotel was lovely; a mixture of English and Japanese cuisine. Photograph 1 shows Sayaka eating hers (why is that I keep taking photos of people eating?). Nonchan didn't join us for breakfast as she was still snoozing. Yes, that's right, the potential delight of a hard boiled egg and a glass of grapefruit juice wasn't enough to prize her from her bed. Before leaving the hotel, I took a photograph out of my hotel room window. To pinpoint a few things in the photograph (photo 2); Nagano station is over to the right, the main centre is over to the left and Starbucks is straight ahead (it wouldn't seem right not to point it out). As you can see, there is no shortage of choice for taxis outside the station. We headed home from the hotel and I began to feel a bit ill. It started off as a bit of a sniffle, so I thought that getting some fresh air might be a good plan. We went out for lunch and ate a Tofu lunch. Photograph 3 shows the soup, fried tofu, tofu with egg (top middle) and tofu cheesecake (top right). It was all delicious. Sadly my cold started getting worse and, after a lie down, it developed into a very swollen throat. As a precaution, we went to the local hospital and saw a Doctor. I was half-expecting him to tell me I had swine flu and half-hoping for some kind of Japanese super-miracle "here, try this and you'll be better in no time... oh, and you'll develop a super ability to see through walls and juggle & eat doughnuts without licking your lips". But, he just stared down my throat and said, in Japanese, "it's a bit swollen" - yeah, no kidding mate, thanks. He then filled out a form for antibiotics. It seems that it doesn't matter where you are in the world these days, a Doctor will prescribe you antibiotics for anything from a sore toe to a missing limb. I'm pleased to report that I haven't taken the antibiotics - I'm recovering with use of rest, night nurse and Nurofen Cold and Flu (and Sayaka's great cooking). So, that was day 4.