The Long Break and the Health Check Up

I'll admit it. A full month of vacation with no real playmates to enjoy it with is kind of a drag. I started the month with great intentions, walking for 45 minutes in the morning in the hills behind my house, writing journals in Japanese and studying every morning, going to yoga or aerobics in the afternoons and then to Japanese classes in the evenings. That lasted about 4 days before I started getting lazier and lazier and lazier. Rockies' games on the internet helped, but they also made me lazy, as they don't usually start till 10 a.m. I went to Tokyo to see Scott for about 5 days, but at the end he was ready not to have Mom in his hair (or lack of it). There were a couple of bright spots when I went hiking with Jon in Kobe, and Hiromi, a former CSU student in Tokyo, as well as the day I struck out on my own and found 4 geocaches in Suma, a beach community in Kobe. Anyway, school starts on Monday, and I am happy to be getting back into a routine.
Last Friday, my college had a health check up day for faculty which I needed to attend. I started the day on the wrong foot when, with the help of an interpreter, I asked if they could check my blood for Thyroid (TSH) as well as the cholesteral, blood sugar that they said they were looking for. No, can't be done. I was a little rude, I guess, as it comes standard with blood work over here. I was also suspicious about them as they did not require fasting for the blood sugar and cholesteral checks. Oh well, on to the chest x-ray. It was in a health mobile in the parking lot, and I had to remove my bra. Fine. However, they told me not to put it back on, and the several other checks were all over campus. I had left my bags in my office, so I was left holding the bra, so to speak. I tried to hide it discreetly under my shirt, but I was feeling like a fool. After the blood draw and the urine sample, we went back to the parking lot to another health mobile where we drank barium and they checked my stomach (for what I don't know) by putting me in this fun house ride and barking orders at me in Japanese. It whirled me up down and sideways while the attendant kept trying to get me to put my arms in the right place. What I didn't realize until afterwards is that after you take barium, it's like the stuff you take before a colonoscopy. In short, don't stray far from the bathroom. A fitting end to my long break.

Trip to China

A package tour. Who knew it could be such a good time? At times you feel you are part of a cattle herd, but overall it was great. Nice people--23 in all. I know because our poor guide, Li, was always counting to 23. Highlights were climbing the Great Wall. I was one of only 6 who chose the steep side. It was less crowded and I refuse to give into little old ladyhood just yet. It was magnificent. It was also fun riding a rusted out old bike on top of the old city wall in Xi An after we toured the Terra Cotta Warriors site. And the 3 day cruise down the Yangtze River through the 3 gorges was delightful. I'm really glad I decided to join a tour group as I enjoyed getting to know the other folks on the tour. They were fun. And just so you know, I will not be eating Chinese food for another 4 months or so, as I definitely had my fill. It was good, but enough already. We finished the tour in Shanghai, which is an amazing, modern city. One of our guides told us that the national bird of China is now the crane (as in building crane) as the entire country is exploding with new construction and economic growth.

I personally added to the economic growth by buying a silk rug at the carpet factory, a pearl necklace at the pearl factory, a small jade violin knicknack at the jade factory, and a silk comforter at the silk factory. What a sucker! You have to bargain for almost everything, and there is a lot of stuff to bargain for. One thing that was a bit annoying was the air travel. I took a total of 4 in-country flights, and 3 of them were delayed--one for 7 hours! when I was alone, waiting for my flight to Beijing, I listened to the loudspeaker in the airport announcing flight after flight being delayed--not for weather but for too much air traffic. Can't they figure that out ahead of time? I was also dismayed to learn that the folks flying in from the states paid the same for their tickets as I did from Japan. My flight was 2 1/2 hours--theirs was 14 and they cost the same. It's not cheap getting off this island!

Anyway, I'm back in Japan and still on break. I don't go back to school until September 28, so I'm spending my time going to the gym, studying Japanese (the trip was great because I had 10 full days with no Japanese guilt)and exploring the mountains behind my house. I may figure out a couple of short trips before I go back.