{"id":728,"date":"2004-04-25T23:00:43","date_gmt":"2004-04-25T14:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2004-04-25\/728"},"modified":"2004-04-25T23:00:43","modified_gmt":"2004-04-25T14:00:43","slug":"getting-settled-in-japan-temples-and-pink-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2004-04-25\/728","title":{"rendered":"Getting Settled in Japan: Temples and Pink-Eye"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<style>\np.editorialf  { width:700px }\n.editorial    { color:#AFA  }\n.editorial a  { color:#CFC  }\n<\/style>\n\n\n<div style='padding:5px 40px; background-color:#444; border: solid 1px #666; margin:10px 30px 50px 10px'>\n\n<p>The text of this post was originally written in April, 2004 as part of\nan online diary I kept before I actually started my blog. I'd forgotten\nabout it until I ran across it in February 2008. I inserted it into my blog\nthen, assigning dates appropriate to the content instead of to the time I\nactually added it. Thus, these April 2004 posts show up as my &#8220;first\nposts&#8221; in my <a nocross='1' href='\/blog\/toc\/'\nclass='quiet'>list of posts<\/a>, even though I didn't actually start a blog\nuntil a year later with my first post about <a nocross='1' class='quiet'\nhref='\/blog\/2005-04-01\/1'>buying a car in Japan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p>There's nothing here of interest to anyone but me; I insert it here so\nthat it's together with my other posts (which are also of little interest\nto anyone but me :-)) <span class='editorial'>Any comments I add while posting this to my blog in February 2008 appear like this.<\/span>\n\n<\/p>\n\n<p>This was originally written just after we moved from California to\nJapan, so our days were dominated by jet lag, and trying to set up our\nlife and newly-acquired apartment. Anthony was 18 months old.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>\n\nAfter having gotten up at 5:15 and watched Anthony for an hour, Fumie got\nup and let me go back to sleep, which <span class='nobr'>I did<\/span> until 11:30, feeling totally\ndrained when <span class='nobr'>I did<\/span> get up. <span class='nobr'>I needed<\/span> to catch up on sleep, and the 5 extra\nhours wasn't enough (but was extremely appreciated).\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nWhile asleep, two more of the packages we'd mailed from Cupertino arrived\n(yes, surprisingly, on Sunday). After unpacking them, <span class='nobr'>I sort of<\/span> felt that\nsome things were missing, and upon further inspection of my paperwork,\nfound that we'd mailed 7 boxes, not the 6 I'd thought. <span class='nobr'>The 7th was<\/span> mailed <span class='nobr'>a\nweek<\/span> after the 6th, so <span class='nobr'>I guess<\/span> we've some time to wait for all the goodies\nthat went into the last box. <tt><b>)-:<\/b><\/tt>\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nToward the later afternoon, <span class='nobr'>I set out<\/span> with Anthony on the bicycle (the\nfirst time I'd taken him out alone on the bike) the to furniture shops to\ntake <span class='nobr'>a third<\/span> look at desks and chairs.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nThe one expensive chair I'd looked at was the <a\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.okamura.jp\/product\/office\/seating\/contessa\/sp\/\">Okamura\n&#8220;Contessa&#8221;<\/a>. <span class='nobr'>It's adjustable<\/span> every which way, and may actually be\ncomfortable to sit and work in (unlike any chair I've ever really used). <span class='nobr'>I\nwon't<\/span> be able to tell unless <span class='nobr'>I spent<\/span> some time adjusting for me, and using\nfor <span class='nobr'>a long<\/span> period, so testing in the store is not sufficient. At $1,300 or\nso, it's <span class='nobr'>a lot<\/span> to gamble on. <span class='nobr'>One of the<\/span> main reasons <span class='nobr'>I went<\/span> again was to\nget the web site of the manufacture, so <span class='nobr'>I could<\/span> research it (and perhaps\nfind <span class='nobr'>a cheaper<\/span> price) on line. Unfortunately, <span class='nobr'>I couldn't<\/span> find anyone online\nselling that chair.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI then went to the place selling the plain &#8220;eastern mahogany&#8221; desk, and\ndecided to put my order in. It'll take 3+ weeks to arrive.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nOne interesting thing I noticed on the way there, while waiting for the\nlight at the corner of Nijou and Kawaramachi, was a <a\nhref=\"\/i\/pic\/2004-04-25_16:59.41__00036.jpg\">very thin\napartment building<\/a>. <span class='nobr'>In the center<\/span> of the picture is <span class='nobr'>a spiral<\/span> staircase\ngoing up about 10 floors. <span class='nobr'>The staircase<\/span> takes up most of the front of the\nbuilding &mdash; it's not connected to the dull gray building on the left,\nnor the brown &amp; glass building on the right. <span class='nobr'>I noticed<\/span> as someone on <span class='nobr'>a\nbicycle<\/span> went by that the width of the entire building was about the same as\nthe length of three bicycles. You can't seen in the pictures, but the room\nnumbers are the same as the floor numbers &mdash; 1 through 10 (one\napartment per floor).\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nAfter the furniture stores, <span class='nobr'>I had an<\/span> hour and <span class='nobr'>a half<\/span> to kill before 6:30\nmass, so <span class='nobr'>I went<\/span> to the Kamogawa river (which runs along Kawabata street,\nwhich is <span class='nobr'>a 15<\/span> minute walk from the house). <span class='nobr'>The river<\/span> is set well below the\nlevel of the surrounding city, and there are bike\/walking paths on either\nside. <span class='nobr'>The paths<\/span> are very nice &ndash; <span class='nobr'>I hadn't<\/span> explored them at all &ndash;\nand was shocked to find such <span class='nobr'>a wonderful<\/span> hidden treasure so close to the\napartment. There were people walking their dogs, riding bikes, doing\ntai-chi (or whatever), nature photographers (the name of the river means\n&#8220;wild duck river&#8221;, and indeed, there's plenty of ducks, tall white cranes,\nand other wildlife), couples on dates, and groups having picnics. <span class='nobr'>It was a<\/span>\nwonderful, wonderful find.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI stopped with Anthony to look at the ducks, and to let him run around and\nhopefully burn of some energy. <span class='nobr'>It was a<\/span> nice time. <span class='nobr'>I then thought<\/span> to\nexplore more, and so rode north (upriver) several kilometers, and it just\ngot nicer and nicer. There were short (1- or 2-yards tall) waterfalls every\nblock or so (you can tell the blocks due to the bridges), and in general,\nit's <span class='nobr'>a wonderful<\/span> place to relax, it seemed.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nTime was running late, so I turned around at what turned out to be\nImadegawa street. <span class='nobr'>To do this<\/span>, <span class='nobr'>I had to<\/span> take <span class='nobr'>a path<\/span> that rose up to street\nlevel, cross the bridge, then take <span class='nobr'>a path<\/span> that went down to river level\nagain. They're not at every bridge, but luckily both were here. <span class='nobr'>On the return<\/span> path, <span class='nobr'>I exited<\/span> early (at what turned out to be Marutamatchi Street)\nbecause <span class='nobr'>I didn't<\/span> know whether there was an exit near the church (at Ooike\nStreet). <span class='nobr'>I took some<\/span> back streets to stay away from the traffic on the main\nstreet, and made it to church about 30 seconds late.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI didn't have the stroller, so felt fairly worried about how Anthony would\nact. Luckily, he was mostly wonderful throughout (<span class='nobr'>I kept<\/span> him full of\nraisins and small crackers, which helped).\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nWe got home a bit before 8:00pm. Lately, he's been going to bed later and\nlater, but getting up at the same 5:15am, which means less and less sleep. <span class='nobr'>I'm of the<\/span> impression that babies his ages should be sleeping at least 12\nhours at night, plus naps during the day. Even though he slept almost four\nhours earlier in the day, it still didn't make up for the lack of sleep at\nnight, so we decided to take him for <span class='nobr'>a stroller<\/span> walk to see whether he'd be\nlulled to sleep.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nThe temple across the street from our apartment, Shorenin Temple, is one\nof the most famous in Japan. <span class='nobr'>It was in<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a list<\/span> of the top 30 temples <span class='nobr'>I saw<\/span>\nonce (note that there are well over 30 temples within <span class='nobr'>a mile<\/span> of here, so to\nbe in the top 30 in all Japan is sort of big). <span class='nobr'>The streets<\/span> around here are\npacked on the weekend as tourists (mostly Japanese) visit this and many of\nthe other temples around. Anyway, starting today, they were doing <span class='nobr'>a special<\/span>\n&#8220;light up&#8221; in the evenings. They're normally closed at night, but for <span class='nobr'>a week<\/span>\nthey have things lit up beautifully at night.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nWe haven't actually visited it yet, so thought this would be <span class='nobr'>a good<\/span> chance.\nUnfortunately, bringing in <span class='nobr'>a baby<\/span> stroller was frowned upon (it's very\nhilly, and probably not practical), so we decided to go elsewhere to get\nhim to sleep. <span class='nobr'>We went to<\/span> Maruyama park about quarter mile away (passing <span class='nobr'>a\ntemple<\/span> or two along the way). This is the same park where Anthony enjoyed\nthe birds last week. He wasn't quite asleep as we walked around, and so we\nleft the park via <span class='nobr'>a way<\/span> we'd not been before, and came upon one of the most\namazing sites I've ever seen in Japan. <span class='nobr'>It turns<\/span> out that we'd come upon the\nsite of the Yasaka Shrine (<span class='nobr'>a fairly<\/span> famous shrine, apparently). <span class='nobr'>It's actually<\/span> part of the park, although <span class='nobr'>I didn't<\/span> know that at the time. Anyway,\nwhat was so amazing was that it was <i>beautifully<\/i> lit up, with the\nsurrounding area very clean, and there was almost no one around. Normally,\nanything of beauty in Japan in which the public is allowed to go is\nimmediately saturated in smoke, garbage, unruly kids, and crowds. This had\nnone of that. <span class='nobr'>It was unreal<\/span>.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nAs we walked around that area, we came upon <span class='nobr'>a small<\/span> street that was equally\nbeautifully lit up, with small little restaurants lining it. While we could\nsee people in the restaurants, the street was eerily empty. <span class='nobr'>I felt as<\/span> if I'd\nwandered onto some mostly-deserted movie set built to some westerner\ndirector's idolized concept of what old, quaint Japan should have looked\nlike. <span class='nobr'>I commented<\/span> to Fumie that had <span class='nobr'>I really<\/span> been on such <span class='nobr'>a set,<\/span> <span class='nobr'>I would<\/span> have told anyone who would listen that you'd never find <span class='nobr'>a place<\/span> like this\nin Japan. <span class='nobr'>It was so<\/span> peaceful and beautiful as to be moving. <span class='nobr'>And all within<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a\n10<\/span>-minute walk from our apartment.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nThankfully, Anthony had fallen asleep by this time, and we were getting\ntired, so we left movie-set Japan behind and came home by 9pm or so. After\nputting Anthony in his futon, we took <span class='nobr'>a bath.<\/span> <span class='nobr'>I then had<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a glass<\/span> of Chinese\nlemon wine (yummy) while putzing around on the computer. <span class='nobr'>I was getting<\/span>\ntired, but since the bath my left eye had been slightly irritated (dry, or\nsomething), so <span class='nobr'>I thought<\/span> I'd check it out in the mirror before heading to\nbed. <span class='nobr'>I was aghast<\/span> to find that the lower-outside corner of my left eye had\nessentially turned into <span class='nobr'>a disgusting<\/span> mass of semi-transparent slime. <span class='nobr'>It looked<\/span> as if <span class='nobr'>I should<\/span> be able to just pick it off my eye, as if <span class='nobr'>a leech<\/span> had\nattached itself (and believe me, <span class='nobr'>I tried<\/span>), but after <span class='nobr'>a while<\/span> <span class='nobr'>I decided<\/span> that\nit was not something growing on my eye, but the eyeball itself. Needless to\nsay (but <span class='nobr'>I will<\/span>), <span class='nobr'>I was fairly<\/span> freaked out. It didn't affect my vision, but\nwas physically slightly uncomfortable, and mentally very uncomfortable.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI still have full health insurance with Kaiser in California, so called\nthem (6:30am their time). <span class='nobr'>I talked<\/span> to an advice nurse, and after describing\nit as best <span class='nobr'>I could,<\/span> she had no idea what it might be.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nLooking to local medicine, after <span class='nobr'>a few<\/span> phone calls by Fumie, it turns out\nthat the Kyoto City College of Medicine's Hospital is not too far away, and\neven at night (it was now 10:30pm), they had an eye doctor available.\nSo, <span class='nobr'>I headed<\/span> off on my bicycle, arriving in about 15 minutes.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI waited for about five minutes before someone came to help the person in\nline in front of me. Once they were helped, <span class='nobr'>I waited<\/span> for someone to come\nback so <span class='nobr'>I could<\/span> register, and while waiting, some guy comes in carrying <span class='nobr'>a\ncrying<\/span> 4-year-old. This guy walked around me, to stop directly in front of\nme (and so be directly in front of the registration window). <span class='nobr'>I looked<\/span> at\nhim incredulously, and the old man at <span class='nobr'>a nearby<\/span> payment window did the same,\nmotioning me that <span class='nobr'>I should<\/span> let him know what he'd done. <span class='nobr'>But the guy<\/span> had <span class='nobr'>a\ncrying<\/span> baby &mdash; how could <span class='nobr'>I ask<\/span> the crying little boy to wait? <span class='nobr'>I just let<\/span> him go. <span class='nobr'>I couldn't<\/span> tell whether the guy was rude, or just not thinking\nabout anything other than his son. <span class='nobr'>I hope the<\/span> latter. <span class='nobr'>He never<\/span> said\nanything to me the whole evening.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nEventually, <span class='nobr'>I got up<\/span> there and filled out the paperwork. <span class='nobr'>I was happy<\/span> to be\nable to write my address down completely, although <span class='nobr'>I realize<\/span> now while\nwriting this (the next day) that I'd swapped the order of the two\ncharacters used to write &#8220;Kyoto&#8221;. Doh! <span class='nobr'>No one said<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a thing<\/span> about it,\nthough.\n\n<\/p><p class='robots-nocontent'>\n\nIt was also the first time I'd used the name &#8220;<a\nhref=\"\/blog\/2004-04-16\/721\">Jeffrey Matsunaka<\/a>&#8221;, as\nthat's what my insurance card was in. <span class='nobr'>A bit later<\/span>, in the waiting room,\nwhen the nurse called out &#8220;Matsunaka-san&#8221; and I (<span class='nobr'>a big<\/span> white guy) got up,\nshe did <span class='nobr'>a quick<\/span> doubletake before gaining her composure and walking me to\nwhere the eye doctor was.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nThe eye doctor was all business, skipping all the pleasantries and asking\n&#8220;what's the problem&#8221;. <span class='nobr'>I showed<\/span> her my eye, explained that it had just\npopped up <span class='nobr'>a couple<\/span> of hours ago, and that I'd never seen of anything like\nit. <span class='nobr'>She looked<\/span> at both eyes through the blindingly-bright slit lamp thingy\nthat eye doctors use, jammed her finger into the affected eyeball, and\nafter all of 30-45 seconds, told me that it was allergy related, that it's\nfairly common (mostly with children), that it should be gone by tomorrow,\nthat she'll give me two sets of drops for it, and that if it's not gone by\nthe next day, <span class='nobr'>I should<\/span> go see an eye doctor.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nWell, that was a relief. <span class='nobr'>As I headed<\/span> back to the waiting room (<span class='nobr'>I must<\/span> have\nbeen gone from it for 90 seconds), <span class='nobr'>I was turning<\/span> my phone back to\nnon-silent and noticed <span class='nobr'>a message<\/span> from Fumie reminding me to be sure to tell\nthe doctor about my former LASIC, and that I'd just moved from America,\njust in case they mattered. <span class='nobr'>I didn't<\/span> think they'd matter, but better to be\nsafe than sorry, so <span class='nobr'>I headed<\/span> back to find her writing up the prescriptions. <span class='nobr'>I told her<\/span>, and she said that yeah, neither mattered, but she was visibly\nsurprised that I'd had LASIC, and said that she hadn't noticed. <span class='nobr'>I guess<\/span> she's not used to seeing the quality result that <span class='nobr'>I got<\/span> with Dr. Mandel in\nCalifornia.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI waited to be called to pay the bill. <span class='nobr'>It turned<\/span> out to be $33. <span class='nobr'>Had we not<\/span>\nsigned up for insurance last week, it would probably have been $330 (you\npay 10%-20% with the insurance), so the insurance already well paid for\nitself.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI got my prescriptions (a steroid drop, and, <span class='nobr'>I think,<\/span> and antibacterial)\nand headed home. <span class='nobr'>I'd been at<\/span> the hospital for 50 minutes. When Fumie looked\nat the info sheet that came with the drops, she suddenly realized that what\n<span class='nobr'>I have<\/span> must be KETSUMAKUEN. <span class='nobr'>I looked<\/span> it up in <span class='nobr'>a dictionary<\/span> and found it to\nmean &#8220;conjunctivitis&#8221;, which means as much to me as &#8220;ketsumakuen&#8221;. <span class='nobr'>A quick<\/span> internet search showed it to be &#8220;pink eye&#8221;, which I've heard of, but\nthankfully had never known what it was. It's disgusting, and the pictures <span class='nobr'>I\nfound<\/span> accurately describe what <span class='nobr'>I had.<\/span> Yuck.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nThere are three varieties, two of which are highly contagious. <span class='nobr'>I apparently<\/span> had the third. Still, <span class='nobr'>I washed<\/span> my hands well, and made sure to stay clear\nof Anthony. <span class='nobr'>I put the<\/span> drops in and went to bed.<\/p>\n\n<p><i><a href='\/blog\/2004-04-26\/729'>Continued here...<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The text of this post was originally written in April, 2004 as part of an online diary I kept before I actually started my blog. I'd forgotten about it until I ran across it in February 2008. I inserted it into my blog then, assigning dates appropriate to the content instead of to the time I actually added it. Thus, these April 2004 posts show up as my \"first posts\" in my list of posts, even though I didn't actually start a blog until a year later with my first post about buying a car in Japan.<\/p> <p>There's nothing here [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}