Recovery

Cian, it turns out, had a touch of pneumonia which has kept him, and me, out of the nursey and university for the past two weeks. While I'm pretty sure the Nursery has missed their little bit of Irish charm, I figure the university has been a model of indifference. We have been in and out of the hospital over the past 10 days or so, and are now pretty much on first name terms with all the nurses in the pediatrics department. And we'll be back again on Monday when the boy goes for another x-ray and I sit in the doctor's office pretending to understand what he is mumbling on a about. And God, does he mumble. When he speaks it sounds like an extended clearing of the throat, a low, incomprehensible bass-line of barely formed words that has me itching to give me a clip across the ear and yell, "For chrissakes, would you speak clearly, man!" I mean, its bad enough that all this is being explained to me in Japanese, but it is made irredeemably worse coming from a man who learned about elocution from watching Marlon Brando in the Godfather.

Still, I shouldn't complain. The cost of all our visits, consultations, tests, and medicines have yet to break the 10 euro barrier. Let's hear it for socialized medicine, folks! God bless Marx.

In fact, the hardest part of the past two weeks have been not so much the illness per se, but keeping the boy's waking hours occupied and entertaining. He's an active three-soon-to-be-four year old, and the doctor's strictures about limiting physical activity and getting plenty of rest are easier said than done. Particularly when we are enjoying our annual extended spell of fine weather that turns Hokkaido, for the month of September, into a Japanese version of southern California. So thank God for the internet. Initially it was just cartoons and train videos on Youtube, but then we discovered the unlimited joys of online poker and, well, as long as "don't tell Mammy", then its no-hold-'em happiness for Cian 'Texas' Takahashi and his financial backer, 'Studs' Gaynor.

Today, because Mammy was around, we had to fold and leave the online felt table, so we went for a train ride. Cian likes his train rides. I think chugging along the rails, sitting in the open boxcar, eeking out a tune on his harmonica reminds him of the Lone Star State, his spiritual home.

Health

Unfortunately, the little man has been laid low for the past week with a bit of nasty chest cough. I suspect bronchitis but then again I'm just a lowly English teacher (and getting lower), so what do I know. Nor does he seem to be able to shake it. I took him to see the doctor last Monday where he received a week's worth of medication, but to date to little avail. Mind you, I can't really fault the Japanese medical system as my experience, or rather my proxy experience via Sanae and Cian*, has been one of unfailing excellence. And cheap too. Cian's visit to the doctor cost is subsidized by 90%, yes, you read that correctly, 90%, so for the consultation I shelled out the princely sum of 180 yen (which is about 1.60 euros). Similarly, for his medicine - a week's worth of cough suppressent and foul tasting fever powder - I spent another 340 yen, just a few cents over 3 euro.
Then on Friday last I had my annual health check here in the university. Said health check is compulsory and thorough too: bloods, urine, x-ray, eye, ear, electro-cardiagram, and a doctor's once over. I was pronounced 'alive' and fit to continue teaching low-level students low-level English. I am, however, going blind. 'Age' said the ophthalmologist and at close on 41, who am I to disagree. Glasses beckon, as do dentures, a wig, incontinence nappies and great, furious tufts of wild ear-hair.
Anyway, said health check was also free and despite being told you are fast becoming McGoo-san, it was good to get it done.

*Outside of required health checks, the only time I have ever been officially admitted into hospital in my 12 years herein Japan, happened shortly before Cian was born. I was biking to the university one morning, free wheeling down a hitherto fun and fast hill when a Nissan X-Trail suddenly pulled out in front me. I hit the front side of the jeep, catapulted myself into the windscreen, bounced off the bonnet and skidded down the road a few metres. Luckily there was no oncoming traffic so I kind of staggered over to the side of the road and sat down. My ankle hurt and that, as far as I could figure out, was the extent of my injuries. The driver, I think, was more stunned by the fact that he had hit a foreigner, a big one at that too, that by the actual accident. Anyway, he makes the requisite emergency phone call and in a couple of minutes, there's a police car, an ambulance, and two, yes, two fire engines, one of them with specialist cutting equipment. Not wanting to have wasted their trip, I offer to go lie under my bike on the road and they could practice cutting me out from under it. The ambulance men want me to lie down on the stretcher. No, no, it's fine, I tell them, I'm not that bad, I can sit on the seat here. No, they insist, you have been in a car accident, you must lie down on the stretcher, it's the rule. To keep them happy (the fireman were already beginning to look pissed off at the lack of anything to do), I lie down on the stretcher. More than a bit embarrassed, we set off, sirens a-wailing, through the streets of Muroran, and two minutes later end up at the local hospital. Into the ER. There's another patient in there before me, an old man, a very old man, unconscious, wheezing a deeply troubled breath, hooked up to a series of beeping monitors with the intervals between beeps growing longer all the time, surrounded by a team of doctors.
And then they see me.
"Woah, what's this, a foreigner, yes! We get to practice medicine on a foreigner; we get this right and there will be an article in Lancet - "Cross Cultural Car Crashes" or some such. Quick, before he gets off the stretcher. No, don't mind the old guy, he's on his way out, wheel him downstairs and leave him parked in front of the motuary. He's headed that way anyway. But don't forget to bring back the monitors. We'll need them to impress the foreigner".
So I get an X-Ray and a CT-scan but unfortunately, despite their dearest wishes, the doctors can find no bones broken, no internal or external bleeding, and nothing wore than a badly bruised ankle and some scrapes and scratches. And so after two hours or so, they reluctantly let me go, but not before they make me promise them that I'll come to this hospital should I ever get in a 'proper' accident.
And that has been my only time in the consummate care of the Japanese medical profession.

Let the Games continue...

Sorry about that folks. Our very own Little Lar Corbet came down with a phlegmy cough after Saturday's heroics and had to go to the hospital this morning where he rather shamefacedly admitted to the doctor that lately he had been taking too many anabolic steroids.

"But what's kid to do, Doc? It's the undokai, Doc, I mean, c'mon, I've been training for it all year. You think I'm going to blow my and Red team's chance of glory? Especially when everyone knows White team are coked up to their eyeballs and so strung out on amphetamines that they haven't slept since June."

Anyway, after Cian's rather uninspired stretching routine they were straight into battle in the 20 yard dash.

And Cian came third. Out of four runners. As was beaten by a girl. A small girl too. For shame. Cian, echoing his father's excuse for his often ropey displays at full forward on the St. Finian's Junior B team, put it down to "a bad pint he had the night before".

Next to the tricky eye-hand coordination team contest of throwing balls into nets. Oh yeah, sounds easy, you reckon. Well, just go ahead and try it some time.

I think the team tactic here was "to spread chaos and carnage in all directions", which, admittedly, isn't the most appropriate tactic to take when the aim is to put balls in a ridiculously high net.

On to the 'Fame!' moment, which I suspect, was the highlight of Cian's day. This comes in two parts, to allow you to catch your breath after the first one minute fifteen seconds of Nureyev-like poetry in motion.

And part two, if you can stand to take the emotional intensity of it all.

Alright, that's enough for one day. I reckon you'll all should go and lie down in a dark place now until your fevered minds learn to cope with what you've just been privileged to witness.

Let the Games begin...

Today, Cian has his undoukai, or 'sports day'. 'Sports' is a term I use quite loosely. As you will see from the attached clips, there is a lot of frantic movement involved to loud music, but I'm not sure you could really call it competitive. Then again, you could say the same about ice skating.

Cian was on the Red team or akagumi, and despite the best efforts of those meany weasels on the cursed White team, or shiroigumi, fairness and justice prevailed, good triumphed over evil, and the Red team won. How they actually won is beyond me, involving as it did a ridiculously complicated scoring system and, I suspect, liberal doses of EPO and Norandrosterone.

Anyway, like all true athletes, before the games can properly begin, these toned, muscled bodies have to go through an elaborate warm-up routine in case they detone and unmuscle any of those said bodies crucial minutes before the off.

Cian as you will see, has a sort of Dara O'Se - Jack O'Connor type of relationship with Red team's Bainisteoir and isn't all that impressed with d'auld stretching thing.

Empty Blog

I am trying to think of something to write about but the incessant, stifling heat we are suffering through, but nothing comes to my basted mind. We are enduring a rice strewn version of Dante's 'Inferno'. Last week, despite the calendar telling us that Autumn had arrived, we had three days in a row of plus 30 degree temperatures (for my American readership - Hello, Ben - that corresponds to 450 Kelvin). If the mercury dips below 25 degrees (398 Kelvin), we regard it as a 'cool' day, and dress accordingly - fleeces, down jackets and electric blankets.

For the three months of summer just gone by, 2010 has broken all sorts of records-since-records-began: hottest summer, highest average nighttime temperature, hottest day, number of days above 30 degrees, hours of sunshine, sustained humidity levels, largest number of whiny, woe-is-me blogs about the subject.

Now all this is taking place in Hokkaido, more famous for its harsh winters, than its sub tropical summers. Everything up here is designed for the cold, our house included - radiators everywhere, lashings of insulation, triple glazing on the window, thick, coarse, heat retaining chest hair (that is now, much to my horror, spreading over my shoulders and down my back - photos to follow) and a distinct lack of air conditioning.

So we sweat, molder, drink gallons of mint juleps and consider chopping down all the fir trees and growing cotton instead.