Negligent Blogger...

Dearest friends, I have been an unfaithful correspondent, and for that I feel terrible. Tonight, at home, with my photos, I will prepare an especially exciting blog post, so that all of you are interested in me again after my absence. In the meantime, a little something to remind you I'm still around...

Today is the Story of Callie's Cold. This does not sound like an amusing story, but in retrospect, I chuckle, so I figure it is a good start. On Saturday last, which would have been Friday for all of you poor, sluggish U.S.-time-zoners, I woke up with a sore throat and an inkling that today, my first real weekend day with my homestay family, would be a little bit difficult. The previous night, my host father had kindly told me and my airforce brothers to sleep in, since it was the weekend - breakfast would be at 9am instead of at 7am.

So breakfast, as usual, was delicious but sparse - I don't know how my host parents do it, but I certainly can't last from 7am to 12pm on the plate they set before me and my much larger fellow students every morning. I wish I could take a picture! That, however, would be a little weird, I think, so I will do my best to describe the situation accurately.

First of all, all of my host family's full size plates are the kid's kind with three compartments - you know the kind I mean? My plate... Yes, I have my own plate. And my own chopsticks, glass, mug, everything. Not that I see them other than at mealtimes. It's just that I always receive the same ones... So anyway, my plate says 'snack, dinner, lunch, breakfast' on it (backwards, I know, but Japanese people read right to left, so maybe not for them?), and in the mornings, one small container is, apparently, the tea mug place. Because the tea mug always sits there. In the other small compartment of the plate is a half a piece of white bread toast liberally spread with butter. In the main compartment is a small salad - maybe 1/4 cup, with dressing, and one slice of ham that could actually be/probably is bologne. Then, there are usually additionally one or two slices of an apple, peeled, and possibly a yogurt. The yogurts are semi-rare. Like, twice a week. And they're about half the size of a typical U.S. yogurt, and twice as watery.

So yeah. Breakfast is small. Good, fine, but small. I don't really understand. They cook up the BIGGEST, most DELICIOUS dinners! So far we've had Japanese curry rice, yakisoba, sashimi (okay, I almost gagged trying to force myself to swallow the last piece of raw tuna, but it turns out I like raw shrimp and squid!) and many other delicious things. No, really, I struggle to finish my meals at dinner time! But in the morning, I have to buy myself a snack to eat at 10am at school, or else I won't last until lunch time! I like to call this the Breakfast Mystery. Well, really, not until now. Because, who would I call it that to? But, from now on, on this blog, I will call it the Breakfast Mystery.

Okay. Now that we are all briefed on the Breakfast Mystery, let us return to today's main event - Colds in Foreign Countries.

I woke up with my sore throat, and I ate my small breakfast, and then I had nothing to do. Except that my host parents were headed out somewhere, and they told us we could do whatever we wanted. And PII officials had warned us all that even on the weekends, we were responsible for our own lunches - so I set out from my house, in search of food, and maybe some sort of Ricola cough drop? Or Throat Coat tea? But definitely some tissues. (Sweet Suiters, you may recall, I keep huge stores of all those products at college. But I never thought to bring them to Japan! I feel, now, like a poor traveler for this mistake...)

So I turned onto the large street where my bus stop is. I had never walked it except to get to my bus, but today I turned the other direction, just in case - I walked until I spied a familiar symbol on a building across the street - 薬。If you were to read it aloud, you would read it `kusuri,` and understand it to mean `medicine.`

Success! I hurried across the street and into the store. Another success quickly followed - I found a sign above a shelf of medicine that read `Kaze,` which means wind, usually, but also the common cold. I was doing so well all by myself! (I wouldn't even have to embarrass myself in front of someone who worked at the store!) But then, I realized, there were no import U.S. products on this shelf. I stared. I stared some more. I didn't really recognize any of the words... Or characters... Or products...

I looked around nervously. There was a box on the front with a picture of a man spraying something into his mouth. His throat glowed red - a sign of pain? But spray-medicines are gross, don't you think? I certainly think so! I noticed that box said `nodo` on it, though. A breakthrough! I realized/remembered, as I read the box, that nodo meant throat! I looked around for that word again, and found it on a small round tin that also featured the word `seki` (cough), and `shaagaaresu` (sugarless). I bought it.

Only on my way home did I check my watch. I had stood in front of the cold section of the drug store for approximately 15 minutes...

When I told my homestay parents I thought I was getting a cold, they said, 'what about a fever?' and then, 'poor you...'

The swine flu fear is still alive and well here in Japan.

Luckily, with my bright pink probably throat drops in hand, I survived the weekend. Now I'm better. And I've learned a valuable lesson - are you ready for it? Never go anywhere without your dictionary. Or your cough drops.