And this is it...

The last post from Japan.

In the last three years I have made amazing friends, known fascinating kids, seen incredible things and eaten squid.

At 5 this Wednesday afternoon, Maia and I will get on a plane and come home... we stop in Seattle, Denver and then, finally, in Houston.

We arrive in Houston Wednesday night at 8:30... all of 3 hours after we leave today. It will be the longest 3 and a half hours of my life.

On the plus side; I'm on a 777 for the first time in my life. Boeing's newest aircraft... I've been waiting to get a ride on that one for a long time... well for a decade or so, anyway...

I also haven't stepped foot on US soil since March of 2006... I'm in for culture shock... maybe not a lot, but some.

Anyway, I guess I have something new to blog about; reintegrating into American society...

And hey! Star Trek opens Friday! :D

---Me

Signing off

This is it. Today they cut off the Internet, then the water, gas and last, power.

We will be staying with a friend for four days (Next week is a holiday here in Japan, so, of course, they can't clear us from our apartment during it... since we fly out on the last day of the holiday, it was either clear the apartment BEFORE the holiday or change our flight...). Either way, though; I'll be out of contact until I return to the land of the Stars and Stripes.

Expect reaquisition of signal on Thursday night or Friday morning. For some of you that might be earlier (I will have to post from Dad's computer until I get the computers at my house dusted off; set up and internet connected...).

I'll post a retrospective on Japan when I get back... boy do I have a lot to write about...

Until then; Moriya base here; signing off.

Haisha

So... my teeth aren't the worlds best anyway... it was only a matter of time...

One of my molars developed a cavity and I decided to avoid the pain and misery of a root canal by going to the dentist BEFORE it started to hurt...

But... I dreaded it... and really... I put it off and put it off...

Finally, though, I received notice that as of March 25th, I have no insurance at all... Knowing that would be the time when my tooth would erupt in cascades of immense pain, I decided to just do it..

I hate the Dentist...

But at least this dentist was cute :D (don't tell Maia I said that...).

Anyway, they call me in and they sit me down on the chair. The chair, by the way, is situated on the second floor of this building, which is all windows. The chair I'm sitting in overlooks the little park across the street where kindergarteners are playing cheerfully. The sun is shining, it's a lovely day, and the kids are playing. A small squadron of High School kids trundle by on their bikes, chatting. This is the way all Dentist offices should be...

"So," says the dentist, sitting next to me on the little dentist stool, "you have a cavity?"

Side note: The Japanese word for cavity is "Mushiba" Literally "Insect tooth" or "Bugtooth"... It was believed, way back in the olden days, that when a tooth got a cavity, it was because you snored at night and the bugs got into your mouth and chewed on your teeth... Woah...

"Yes" I say, "About 10 years ago I lost the tooth behind it due to not coming into the dentist on time (At least I'm honest) and I think this cavity is connected to that..."

"Ah, let me see."

I lean back.

She frowns (I can only see her eyes anyway above the mask and under her little medical cap, so I'm having to read her expressions there). "Well, it doesn't look good... does it hurt?"

"No, not at all."

She zots it with cold water and air...

"Now?"

"Nope."
So I'm off to be nuked... she stands next to me as the familiar Dental X-ray is swung into place. The assitant puts the lead vest on me and then the doctor places a wired device in my mouth next to the tooth and holds it there! The little X-ray beeps twice and she says "Okay, done!"
She didn't even leave the room! I'm shocked!
We return to my chair where the little computer screen next to the table already has the pictures of my tooth up on it...
"It looks like the cavity is actually much bigger on the inside... I don't know if we need to do a alfjkghadlkvjadlfkvj."
"A what?" I ask... fear bubbling up inside me...
"A alkbldkfjbnvadl."
Okay, Dental Japanese... not my forte... "How's the root?" I ask (Because I can say "Root")
"That's the problem," she says "No pain is a good thing, but as you can see, the cavity is really close to the root." (She passes her cursor over the tooth, and you can see layers of the tooth vanish and reappear... my goodness this is cool!)
"Root Canal" I whisper in English in a horrified voice... as if avoiding the wrath of the Root canal gods...
"Yes, Ruuto Canaru."
So we start the drilling...
At some point she says:
"Okay, now we are going to Goro Goro."
This sounds like a bad porn movie or something... but I just nod... She's cute...I guess... I've seen worse plots...
She puts the grinder in...

Gororororororororororororororororororo.... it says in my mouth... Ah... I get it.

Then she looks at it with the mirror.
"Okay, I think the root is okay... I'm going to use the laser now."
Laser? I perk up... Suweet! I'm going to get zotted by a laser! :D
"It won't make any noise." She says.
"But it does make a strange smell." I add.
"You know?" She asks.
"I love lasers! They are cool!
She laughs.
The laser pops a lot, and there is a distinct... um... odor which I needn't discribe, but you can guess... And a strange taste in my mouth... but that's okay.
Then she puts in the filling and we are done!

I go to the front counter and the lady asks; "Do you have insurance?"
Uh oh... here it comes, "No..." (I pay up front and my insurance reimberses me... it's easier to just say "No" than explain all of that)
"So, you'll be paying out of pocket?"
"Yes."
"That will be 5,700 yen please." She says and hands me the bill.
For those of you that don't speak Yen, that's roughly $50... That's it.

As a side note, Maia did something to her knee two weeks ago, and it swelled up... she went to the doctor, got an X-ray, had the fluid drained, and was given some pain medication for 8,000 yen... (About $80)...

Why is Socialized medicine a bad thing again?

Anyway, my tooth that had been chewed on by bugs while I snored at night has been repaired.

-Mushiba no more

Yag-me Jubei!

This is sorta more for Xanderman than anything else, but anyone who has played Samurai Spirits (Samurai Showdown in English) knows of the character Yagyu Jubei.

The thing is; he really existed... and is rather a famous figure here.

In December I went to Kyoto with my Dojo (And I have some GREAT pictures from there)... but this one pretty much sums it up; Standing on the ruins of the Castle of Yagyu, near the infmaous Yagyu Dojo (Which I visited), where at one time Miyamoto Musashi once stood. On ground where even today the New Shadow School of swordsmanship is practiced, there was this;

Yep, they have a sense of humor even with their history...

---Yagme

Happy 2009 everyone! :)

Gia came to Japan (Hence why I haven't blogged in a while).

We tried to stay (All three of us) in my apartment, but that became laughable very fast, So we stayed at Maia's apartment.

What did we do in those ten days? Everything... or at least it FEELS that way...

We started out going to Yokohama, where we rode the fastest elevator to the top of Landmark Tower, and visited Yokohama Chinatown. Of course, it is Gia, so we also visited the Foreigners' Cemetary.

Then New Years rolled around and we tried to go to a temple to ring the bell... but we went to a shrine first and spent some time eating squid with a whole bunch of drunk Japanese fellows who weren't sure where the temple was, but have some more squid! :D Ultimately we found a temple and rang the bell.

Then we went to Mt. Fuji.... I'm not kidding. By car (It's a national holiday and we were stuck in traffic at 11 in the morning passing through Tokyo on C2).. which was interesting. On the way home it took us 2 hours to go 10 kilometers when we got stuck in the rush to return to Tokyo.

Then we went to see Kabuki at the Ginza Kabuki-za (The Emperor's Kabuki theater). But that took two days since it sold out while we were waiting in line on Saturday. Instead we went to Asakusa on Saturday only to find that there were literally millions of people waiting to get in to Sensoji temple... which was astonishing! We had to wade through a sea of humanity just to get across the main thuroughfare. That night we went to Karaoke, Japanese style.

Then Sunday we actually went and saw the Kabuki play, which was pretty cool (They had a ship on stage! :D)

Monday and Tuesday we went to Nikko, which is in the mountains. We had a room at this little hotel on lake Chuzenji. I actually used the slate and painted a picture of the lake and the mountains from the window, but I didn't finish it.

Finally, it was time for Gia to go home, which was sad. I love my little sister and she was a lot of fun to be with. It's interesting how amazing this country is and how much I have forgotten that fact since I have been here for three years. I knew I would... but only intellectually... I guess in my heart I am starting to think of Japan as commonplace.

Which means that it's probably time for me to come home.

Thank you, G. You helped me remember just how awesome this country is!

-Me.

Socialized Medicine

So, I've been hearing a lot about Obama wanting to socialize medicine... And then I hear all kinds of horror stories therein about socialized anything...

I woke up this morning with double-vision and dizzyness... I'm still not sure what caused it, but since it could be the sign of a stroke or something, I went to the local clinic.

Where the only doctor in town that speaks English saw me in 11 minutes, checked my eye response and other things (Blood pressure, etc) diagnosed my problems as related to sleep deprivation and fatigue (I do suffer from bad insomnia), gave me a shot of something (I don't know what, but only because I really don't know what the nurses were saying, they were talking in medical Japanese... something I haven't really studied too much....), gave me a prescription for medication that I needed to take for the next 7 days (Yeah, I have no idea what that is, either), rest, told me to lay off TV and video games for a while (Easy enough :D) and sent me on my way.

The entire trip took 1 hour, cost $35.00 (Another $15.00 if you count in the strange blue pills), was filled with some interesting anecdotes about my life in this city of mine... and the hospital was within walking distance (Which is great, since I really didn't trust myself to drive while dizzy)...

So... what's wrong with Socialized medicine?

Right, it's bad for the industry...

So, in America I have to wait a day (I never got in to see the doctor on the day I had a problem. There were times the problem had worked itself out BEFORE I got in to see the doctor), I pay $100 for the office visit and $50 for the medicine for this problem... heaven help me if I have a worse problem (My Flu test last year cost me $110... I can't imagine what it would have cost me in America!). My mother stopped going to the doctor when she realized she really couldn't pay her medical expenses... That turned out well.

Well, okay... so I'm glad we are fighting against this... At least the industry is good to go!

As for me, well... I don't know what has caused the problem, it's better now, but I still have trouble focusing my eyes on things and it feels like I have the flu (That, strange disconnected-head feeling). And I have to do Kindergarten tomorrow... If I'm still dizzy, This'll be really fun.

Mal... I'd love to hear from you on this one; Why are we afraid of socialized medicine?

Coin conservation failure

I was at the supermarket a while back, buying groceries.

The clerk tallies everything and says: "That will be 2,451 yen, please."

So I pull out my change purse, and seeing that I have an inordanate number of little, irritating, completely useless, aluminum 1 yen pieces, I decide to give her 2,506 yen; 2 1,000 yen notes, a 500 yen coin and six of those damndable aluminum coins... Seems reasonable, I give her six little aluminum coins, she gives me 1 copper coin. At least you can give the 5 yen pieces to the temples (They have a hole in the middle, making them lucky... That takes some explaining, just take my word for it, giving them 1 yen pieces is bad form)...

Now, my plan is brilliant; she will give me a 50 yen piece and a 5 yen piece. I will have traded 7 coins for 2... I will have saved room in my already bulging coin purse that randomly leaks 1 yen pieces into my backpack or pocket as it fails to maintain structural integrity due to an overload of aluminum...

What does she do? She smiles, mumbles an apology in super-polite Japanese, slides the 500 yen piece into the change sorter and gives me back my 6 yen... with that "Yeah, you probably don't really understand how to use that "money thing", do you?" look on her face.

And then promptly gives me 49 yen in change; 4 ten yen pieces, a 5 yen piece and 4 MORE stupid, little, aluminum 1 yen pieces.

So... I gave her one coin and gained 9 coins...

I tried to argue, by my Japanese-speaking brain is slow to react and I am thus greeted with the pleasant Boop Boop Boop sounds of her checking the next customer in line...

As I fed the last of my newly aquired gains into my strained coin pouch, it just looked back at me with that, stupid, metallic, overwide grin...

And then, just to spite me, it spat a couple of those 1 yen coins into my pocket...