28 August, 2008

Consumptive Diaries Part 20: The humdrum life

Am not going to write much about TB today. It's all kind of in the background - no hospital visits till 12th September (when The German & I have our first hospital date).
Instead we have the mundanity of taking our medicine everyday.
Our regular daily conversation is this:
'Sweety, have you taken your medicine?'
'Yes. Have you taken yours?'
'Yes, took it this morning.'

For me, it's been kind of weird taking my daily medication when i don't actually feel ill. But i know those buggering bacteria are sitting there inside me, ready to pounce - which is a bit of scary. So, despite the side effects, i take my medicine everyday.

Otherwise, life is fine. Been surprisingly busy at work this month, but been finding it really rewarding. Spent a lot of my time teaching Japanese cabin attendant (CA) trainers how to train Chinese CAs. Meant that we touched upon a lot of things; training & feedback techniques, cross cultural differences in training styles and lots of role-playing. At the end of training, one of the CA trainers came up to me and said, 'Thank you - your advice was really valuable'.
Nearly brought a tear to my eye, it did...

And last weekend was an 'escape to Izu' weekend. Spent Friday & Saturday night with Cynthia & Osamu, who left on Sunday afternoon. And that was their big mistake of the weekend. It absolutely pissed it down & all the trains stopped. C&S got stranded in Izu-kogen (not even half way to Atami) and ended up staying there for the night.
Meantime, K & I and his friends Austin & Ayako, headed to Paradise Cafe & stumbled upon Ash & Tracey, who were enjoying a naughty weekend away. They invited us over to their hotel for dinner & drinks & we ended up staying there chatting to another German/British couple. Cool people. Thanks to Tracey & Ash for letting us gatecrash their weekend.

And then it was Monday.
The German & I headed to Shimoda station with our pre-reserved train tickets, only to find that all trains were
still running late. At least an hour behind schedule!
So i suggested to K that we cash in our train tickets & rent a car instead and he liked the idea.
Good thing we did - looks like the trains were more than an hour late. So while all the masses, including C&S, were waiting around train stations, we had our first little road trip date. And it was fun. Went through the mountains, and although we didn't see Mount Fuji, we felt like we were driving through the clouds. Have to do that again.

And finally, for those of you who have been to Izu & stayed at Iriyama-so. Do you know how old Mama-san is?
She'll be 80 next month! Shocked me. Thought she was late 60s...see, Izu is good for you!

4 comments:

Sandi said...

Ah, Izu. Gotta get back there sometime. What a paradise.

j-ster said...

Hehehehe, wow, Shimoda is smaller than I thought! I miss Izu too.... Is Iriyama-so the place that you and i stayed together one time? I forget.

arumanda said...

good to hear you getting out and about. take care and a big odaiji ni to you.
xo

MissSin said...

Yup, Izu: the paradise that is actually reachable by train ;)

J-ster: Iriyama-so is indeed the same place that we stayed in together. And mama-san is still bringing food and snacks everyday...