MRIs and kanji and names! Oh, my!

At the behest of The Other Woman’s husband’s insurance company I had some x-rays and an MRI taken this morning and by all accounts my brain seems to be just as it should. I had to tell the doctor that I had been having some headaches so the insurance would pay for it but since it was her insurance company that wanted it (since I didn’t get anything like this at the hospital) that seemed a little strange to me. The MRI was much quicker than I was anticipating. The technician told Emi (or at least she thought he did) that it would be really loud and last for 45 minutes; it was rather loud (though not unpleasantly so because of the headphones I was wearing) but kind of comfortable and I was looking forward to a little nap but it only lasted about 10 minutes.

There were some interesting posters on the wall– I’ll post a photo I took soon. Sugihara-san filled out the medical history form for me and part way through explaining what had happened he wanted/had to use a kanji (Chinese character) that he couldn’t remember how to write. He and Emi discussed it for a few seconds and then she looked it up in the dictionary in her phone. This still strikes me as strange even though it is not the first time this has happened by a long shot.

 

Kiyou wa…Hina Matsuri!

Kiyou wa Hina Matsuri (Doll Festival), or Girls’ Day.  It is always on March 3rd (3/3).  FYI Boys’ Day is 5/5 and Tanabata is 7/7, but more on those later.  So, really, only families with daughters celebrate Hina Matsuri but there is evidence of it at grocery stores, conbeni, and the nursery schools I sometimes visit.   Families (or schools) that celebrate display Hina dolls on a stepped shelf.  The dolls can be pretty expensive so many families may only have the top shelf whereas the schools have the whole shebang (7 tiers).  The dolls are set up a few weeks prior to the holiday to wish for good health, growth, and luck for the girls of the family/establishment and then are promptly taken down on March 4th or else the daughters will never marry. 

 

dun, dun, dun…the accident

I really didn’t want this to be my first real post but…  

I’m OK… but, yes, I was in a car accident on Tuesday. Here’s the play-by-play:    

I was driving back to the Yakuba (town hall) with Emi after my morning classes and we were hit by another car that apparently lost control due to some black ice (or it could have been what they call shabeto (sherbet) here, which is what we would call “slush”). Thankfully, I wasn’t going very fast because it was raining and I was going up a little hill. Emi saw her swerving towards us first, pointed and said, “Look out.” I turned to look and saw her coming towards us at an angle. Then I heard a loud bang (I have no recollection of the feeling of being hit…just this loud noise). I never felt like I lost control of the car but I pulled over and stopped. I remember looking down at all of this glass in my lap and then looking over at Emi to see is she was OK (she was fine, though a little worried about me because I had some blood on my face). After we each took some window out of our mouths, I assured her I was alright and then noticed my side mirror was laying next to my lap. It had gone through my window and hit me, not even an inch from my right eye.  

 

Finally!!!

Welcome!  

I’ve been shamed by my cousin, Walter, into finally getting around to making my own blog.  I remember a certain phone conversation with Lindy in which I told her before I even left the US that I was going to start a blog so I would be able to share my experiences in Japan with my friends and family back home– let’s not count how many months ago that was, k?    

 Now that my computer is finally functioning again (thank you sooooo much Lee), I figured I could christen this happy occasion by putting it to good use and finally starting this thing.  I hope to include lots of photos (“a picture tells a thousand words” and all that), snippets from my daily life, my observations about life here and how it differs from the US (or at least my part of it), my Japanese adventures and anything else that comes to mind.  I’ve been sending weekly updates to Tom and Karla’s 5th grade class since the school year began so I will probably be including some of those for your enjoyment, as well.  I may even throw in some of my old emails (strange punctuation cleared up) that might not have made the rounds.  

If you have any questions or things you are interested in about Japan please send them my way— I’ll share what I know and, more likely than not, supplement that with lots of questions to Emi.I’m off to make my new baby look pretty (yeah, I have my priorities straight) but I promise I’ll post something more interesting tomorrow. Enjoy!