Category: experiences

Yesterday the builder came to fix the hole in my wall that has been there since I moved in here. As this is a traditional Japanese house, the walls are essentially made of mud on a wooden frame, held together by wood on the outside and some sort of plaster on the inside. The problem with my wall was that the plaster on the inside came loose at some point, and sometimes pieces of mud would fall out into my room, usually small grains and dust, but once a piece the size of a bottle cap fell out.

Anyway, so the builder finally came yesterday. Finally, because after several appointments three weeks ago which he mostly did not keep, he came here to fix some other things around the house and on the roof to disappear again when the rains started, he needed an extra appointment on Tuesday to look at my wall again as a reminder what to do. So, all in all it took him three weeks to fix everything around the house – I guess the whole work could have been finished in a day, two at the max, but he chose not to do anything in the afternoon. Apparently this is standard in Japan, not kept appointments included. This astonishes me as the country is known for its polite people and strong work ethic…

When he finally arrived yesterday at 9 am I was looking forward to it. My landlady had described in detail what was going to happen: “He’ll take off the plaster, fix the whole with some mud and then you’ll get new plaster on top of that.” The idea was that he would redo the whole panel and not just the damaged corner, which would probably take a while, so after having removed my futon and other assorted stuff littering my floor, I sat in the corner with my computer table and patiently waited – camera ready – for the things that were supposed to happen.

Well, it started off alright. After covering the tatami neatly with large pieces or sturdy cardboard and preparing his tools, he stepped on the small ladder and started to tear off the plaster. (I keep on saying plaster, but you have to imagine it more like a very heavy type of wallpaper, about 3-5 mm thick.) He didn’t do very much though, only the part that would come off easily. He took some measurements and disappeared for a short while, reappearing with – a piece of something resembling mdf the size of the panel he was supposed to fix. My surprise turned into outright shock when he used double sided tape to glue the mdf to the wall… At least he secured it with thin slats that he affixed to the wood already in place with small nails. He then “repaired” the panel next to it in the same fashion, took his things out, and, after vacuuming my room very thoroughly (another surprise), he left. The whole repair operation took only one hour.

I think the outcome is ugly, and I don’t even mean the color that doesn’t fit to the other walls. Yes, it’s doing the trick insofar as there will not be any more dust raining down on my bed, but the room has lost a lot of its charm. I would call the work shoddy – double sided tape of all things! – and when you knock on the new panel it sounds hollow, and it feels like plastic. I am certainly not happy about this, but … it’s not my house and I think I have to be grateful to still have a cheap roof over my head.

The weather has improved, the temperatures are back in the low thirties which I find more acceptable at this time of the year compared to the low to mid twenties it had at the beginning of the week.

The reason for the very heavy rain that lasted several days almost without breaks was Doraji, the 17th typhoon of this season in SE Asia. It travelled quite some distance, was supposed to hit Korea, but decided instead to go to Japan and make landfall at the southern tip of Shikoku early on Wednesday. Doraji pushed the heavy rain in front of it. When I went out on Wednesday, within five minutes my jeans were soaked up to the knees, not to speak of my sneakers…

With the rain came a severe drop in temperature of about 10 degrees. During the day it was okay, at least the humidity wasn’t too annoying. But it became really cold in the night. I have what is called a “hot carpet” in my room, that is a carpet with some electrical wiring inside that can be heated so you can sit on something warm. It lies underneath my futon, and I was very happy to use it in the night from Wednesday to Thursday. Another housemate of mine who is staying downstairs where it is usually cooler than in my room used her heavy sleeping bag, even during the evening. I am glad it’s over, but I have to say I do not look forward to winter time here – there’s no central heating in the house…

Take a look at the picture to the left.

What’s wrong with this building?

 

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it as such, it’s a perfectly fine building.

In fact, this is a hotel near Teramachi street in Kyoto.

 

Anyway, there is something about this building you’ll only find in Japan.

Take another, closer look.

 

And?

Found anything?

 

Do you notice the red triangles on some of the windows? Those stickers can be found on many windows of government or other public buildings, but also large apartment blocks or high buildings like this hotel sport these red triangles. They mark those windows that are emergency entrances. I am not sure if all of them have the same design, but the one I have checked (from the inside) opened in a special manner: by turning around a vertical axis in the centre of the window. Why this is superior to a normal sliding window or one that turns around hinges at the sides, I cannot fathom but I trust the Japanese expertise on this one. I suspect those special windows are meant for firefighters or other rescue workers to enter a building at the right floor in case of fire, maybe even after an earthquake.

I said above emergency entrance and no, this is no mistake. How do I know this? Because, firstly, it says so on the other side of the sticker (I took a picture of this too, but can’t find it at the moment – will upload as soon as I do) but also, secondly, I have seen those triangles on doors in the middle of smooth facades, where a safe exit is not possible, not if you forgot to bring your superman suit, that is.

I am taking palliative medicine.

Now that I have your attention, let me assure you: I have no plans of dying soon, despite my disease being incurable; I will die with it but not from it, as long as I take that one pill every morning before breakfast (which is what palliative medicine is, strictly speaking: relieving symptoms without curing the cause. Think of diabetes and insulin, for example.)

Unfortunately I was running out of my pills and hence, I had to see a doctor to get a new prescription. I decided to go to the Kyoto University Hospital, partly because at least the doctors there (should) speak English, and partly because it is just a stone’s throw away from Ebisu’s. The hospital accepts outpatients from 8:30 to 11:00, so I went there as early as possible.

I arrived at the responsible ward at 8:30 but was slightly surprised that it was empty of both patients and personnel. Somebody told me however, that as a first timer in the hospital, I had to register first on ground floor, counter #2. The hospital appears to be very prepared for the foreigner who does not speak Japanese: The form was in English and the staff has their usual explanations translated and compiled into a long list, so they only need to point at the right sentence in English. My old Austrian drivers licence caused some hilarity (they need a copy of an ID and I don’t carry my passport), but besides that everything went smoothly. I was issued a Hospital Card immediately and, armed with instructions and something that looked like a mobile phone I was sent back up to the responsible ward.

There, I first was handed another form to fill in (medical history), and was then instructed to have my measurements taken. I stepped on a small platform and a machine automatically took my height (less than expected) and my weight (still too much), and then I sat at another one that took my blood pressure (all ok). Then, I had to wait.

Finally, at about 11:20, the phone rang. Well, it’s not really a phone, but some kind of oversized beeper with a large display. When it rings, a message is displayed telling you what to do next. In this case it said “come to examination room 207”, and I dutifully obeyed. The doctor, a nice middle-aged man who spoke excellent English and even some German, was already waiting with my file ready. After discussing the medication and its dosage he asked me to have a blood test done and whether I’d want to wait for the results. I agreed to that, and off I went, first to have my blood taken (everything done and over with in less than 5 minutes), then to have lunch in a coffee shop.

At about a quarter to one the phone rang and I saw the doctor again. We agreed on a slightly lower dosage than what I have been taking until now, he gave me a prescription and a new appointment in 3 months’ time.

Barely out of his examination room, my phone rang again and I was instructed – provided I was finished now – to take all my stuff to ground floor, counter #5, in order to finalise everything and to pay. The paperwork was taken by some clerk, and I was asked to wait in front of several machines where I could pay my bill. “But, how much is it?” I asked, just to get the answer: “You’ll get a message on the phone…” And so I did after maybe another 10 minutes. I put the phone into an extra slot into the machine so the amount was transferred and I could pay by inserting cash or using a card. Once the receipts were printed – very nicely on A4 paper – the phone disappeared automatically and I could leave the hospital.

I then walked across the street, picked one of the pharmacies at random, and while they were filling the prescription, I had to fill in yet another form about my medical history… It seems that Japanese love forms of every provenance.

The whole adventure including the trip to the pharmacy took about five and a half hours, but mostly that was because I had (or chose) to wait. As I have a fixed appointment for next time, it should go much faster then.

Things that surprised me:

• They needed my mother’s name on the application form. Why?
• Everything appears to be highly efficient. You know who’s an office clerk, a doctor, a nurse, they all wear appropriate uniforms. Everything is organised, you know exactly what to do, where to go and when. All forms are in English (even the one in the pharmacy) and the lists with the English sentences are a great help. If you are still unsure, all staff are very friendly and helpful.
• The beeper/mobile phone. You can walk around the whole hospital or have a coffee while you are waiting. There is no need to stay put in your ward and stare at the wall. A brilliant system – and: I got the messages in English! I have heard that those beepers also work across the road in the many little restaurants – buy maybe the beepers for the doctors on call have a larger range?
• My next appointment is in exactly three months, and I received medication to cover exactly those days – and not a single more. Instead of a full package of pills as normal in Europe, the pharmacy handed me a bunch of those blister packages tied with a rubber band in a plastic bag together with a single piece of paper stating how often I need to take them. No package insert listing all hazards when taking this medication – but it may have been different had I said that I could read Japanese.

So yes, despite the endless wait it was a rather pleasant experience, and I’m looking forward to the next appointment.

It was a very nice day today, hot and comparatively dry. The maximum temperature was 38 degrees, with a humidity of about 40 percent, and it was cloudy enough that the sun didn’t heat up my room to resemble a sauna.

I took myself as usual to my favourite place at Yoshida shrine until the late afternoon, when I could hear thunder in the distance. I then sat at my window watching the storm approaching over the city from the South where there are no mountains. It took only half an hour and lots of lightning – which unfortunately I was always just a fraction too late to capture on camera – until the rain finally arrived at Ebisu’s. And then, everything was over almost as quickly.

Thunderstorms in this part of the world are not overly pleasant, I think. While in Austria, a summer storm is always a reason to be grateful for as it cools the area and leaves fresh air behind, this is not so in Asia, as I had to find out before. Mostly, the rain has no cooling effect whatsoever, and there is hardly any fresh air afterwards, although there may be this nice “wet” smell lingering for a short while. Thunderstorms in these parts seem only to be there to raise the humidity, so the general feeling when one has just passed is one of increased stickiness, which is not really something to look forward to.

This time, probably because the storm came so late in the afternoon, there was an unexpected and quite refreshing drop in temperature of about 5 degrees. It does feel nice and cool right now, I may even need a blanket for the first time since I returned from vacation! Unfortunately, humidity has doubled to 80 percent – and it may stay just like that tomorrow…

Isn’t it nice to be able to complain about the weather no matter what it is and where you are? 😉