Pneumonia

The new car

Long time no write, main reason was that I spent 5 days in hospital (18th-23rd) with pneumonia. Not that I knew I had it. I'd had a nasty flu like cold for about a week before I went to the hospital (no doctors surgeries in Japan, if you need to see the doc, you gotta get to the byoin (hospital)).

The only reason I went to the hospital was to placate my school as I'd overslept on the Friday morning and it was my way of getting out of having to take paid leave rather than sick leave. So I wasn't expecting the doctor to admit me on the spot.

Mino Hospital (not top be confused with Mino Tanaka Hospital as for our 5K population we have TWO!) is a little archaic, probably built around the 1950's but thankfully I had a private room. I must have sent the average age of patients tumbling, as I think I was the only person who could stand fully vertically as everyone else had various curvatures of the spine.

The staff were nice, the doctors could all speak decent English (its part of their medical training) and the nurses I think were just excited to fuss over a young man, bonus that I was foreign!

I had a decent amount of visitors and Fujimoto-sensei had gone back to my house on instruction and brought back my laptop and DVD's so I had some entertainment while taking my antibiotics (twice daily by IV and 3 times by oral pill).

Since I got out I haven't had to do a lot. Last Thursday was closing ceremony (we are "finished" for this school year and the new one starts on April 11th) so I can come and go at school as I see fit, at least I think I can, I was in for 3 hours Friday, didn't bother yesterday (I too had Easter monday, no eggs mind!) and I'm in this morning (started at 9:30) so I can sort out paperwork to buy a new car.

I'm upgrading from my Corolla to a Subaru Impreza which is serviced until August 2006 so (fingers crossed) it should be the last car I have until I go.

As it's Japan there is a ton of paperwork I need to change ownership and I have the added problem that I didn't complete all the paperwork on my own car so disposing of the bad boy could be a little tricky (hence why I'm in today, I think I need to have a meeting with my local garage and I need a translator, basic Japanese isn't gonna cover motor vehicle dilemmas!).

Over the weekend I went up to Amie's in Kaminaka (a good 3 3/4 hour drive from my house, yet only 150km) to play some kickball (baseball with your feet) with a bunch of other JETs in the mountain wilderness. It was good fun that was tempered only by it being my last day on Antibiotics so no bevies for me!

On Sunday I decided to go out for Hannah's birthday and we did a 7:30-2:30 stretch at Karaoke (all you can drink, and I was celebrating being off the antibio's) for a pocket friendly 3,500yen. Another reason why I didn't bother going to school yesterday I had a killer hangover, although I did manage to get up and drive home and be back for 9:30, but the prospect of being in school did not entice me. So I watched some TV and Elektra and After The Sunset (both no too bad movies).

Well must crack on with this paperwork to get my new car. This weekend I'm going to Hiroshima with Jody and Beej.