After classes and in between homework assignments, I was able to show Mom around the place where I have been living since March. On Monday, Keisuke joined us and we went to a nearby curry rice restaurant. Mom and I shared a chicken curry and salad – not quite thanksgiving dinner, but it was mighty tasty. That night we stayed in the Japanese room at Ikue’s apartment building.
On Tuesday, I went to class in the morning and Mom went to talk to Brooks (the young American who works in the international office) about getting a translation of the medical slips from my hospital visits. At break, he pulls me aside saying that since I was not feeling better yet, we should go to the hospital. So next thing you know, Mom, Brooks and I are in a taxi to the hospital. This time I got a chest x-ray done and after waiting a while to get into the doctor’s office his was rather vague about what my symptoms could mean and needed a lot of prompting to give answers to our questions. We settle on that it hadn’t developed into pneumonia, but possibly into asthma… so I was prescribed another set of medication, including two inhalers. I wasn’t too convinced at the time, but it’s been almost a week now and I’m feeling a lot better… of course I hope it isn’t really asthma and was just lingering symptoms of the bronchitis. Anyways, back at I-House that afternoon (a little late) Hiromi came with her sister to visit us. They had both come to Nelson 10 years ago when Hiromi preformed the tea ceremony for us. We had a lovely chat out in the courtyard garden. They had also brought some “thank you for coming to Japan” gifts for my Mom and birthday gifts for me. How wonderful of them!
On Wednesday, I had a long day of classes because of Portuguese class and Mom made dinner for me at I-House in the evening :) Thursday Mom and Ikue met me for lunch at the university cafeteria. From there, we went for a walk up to the funky house and the small shrine at the top of the community behind the university. That evening Mom and I ate a lovely Japanese dinner that Yuuko-san (the caretaker here at I-House) prepared for us. And we all shared the Okanagan Ice Wine from Suzukis. It was fabulous!
On Friday, once I had finished most of my homework for the weekend, Mom and I played a game of cards and then walked up to the hill shrine. There we cleansed, prayed, admired the beautiful view and then we walked down the other side to Osho-sama’s house. I had planned to just introduce her to my Mom before we went out for dinner, but Osho-sama insisted on inviting us in for tea… and rice cakes, and gifts… lots of gifts, treats, mugs and and obento box! We weren’t that hungry after, but still wanted to try the nearby sushi bar, so we stopped in there for a bite to eat before returning to I-House. That night, I got woken up at 4:30 in the morning by someone pounding on Yuka’s door saying there was an emergency, then Melanie got taken away in the ambulance. I couldn’t get to sleep for a while, worrying about her so I wrote the last post for my blog. Turns out that she has kidney stones – ouch! I guess the moral of these stories is, hospital visits aren't fun so please take care of your health!
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