Kokatsu Teien

So, I ended up with this cough from a cold that I caught last week. I spent the weekend doing nothing since I lacked the energy to do things.

Anyway, when I returned back to office on Monday, I was still coughing quite a bit. After work, I decided to go see a doctor to treat my simple cough. According to the health provider list from work, most general doctors were located at the hospital near where I lived. Back in Canada, I would not visit the hospital for something that my family doctor would handle easily. But according to my coworkers, it seems to be the best place to find a general doctor.

By the time I got there in the evening, those offices have closed. When I entered the hospital, I asked the reception lady:

Me: So, this sounds sorta stupid but I want to see a doctor about my cough.
Receptionist: Well, all our doctors are gone now. You could go to the emergency ward.
Me: I don’t typically go to the emergency ward for a cough. I’d feel stupid just walking in.
Receptionist: Don’t worry. There are a lot of people who does the same.
Me: Fine, where is the emergency ward?

So after checking in the emergency ward, I discovered the following with regards to American hospitals:
- wait times are really low. It took 1.5 hours to see a doctor.
- all rooms are private, they also have TVs
- 100% of the cost was covered by my employer’s insurance
- 100% of drug cost was also covered

I think I’ll try a different approach next time… I’ll find a local family doctor instead. I’m still slowly learning my new way of life here.

Another two weeks of not blogging… I caught a cold for the greater part of last week and left me rather incapacitated when I got home. I blame my coworkers for spreading the germs.

Today, I spent a thousand bucks to buy tickets to return back to Toronto for Christmas. Fortunately, I got direct flights going and return. Two weeks of holiday are booked off in December. Looking forward to going home.

Wee! I spend another b-day in a foreign country. I am proud of my achievements so far and I look forward to more challenges in the future.

Went up to Vancouver last weekend to meet up with some of my old co-op Japan friends. Since they did come down to Seattle in July, Brett and I paid back the favour. Wakeboarding is sure fun…

Being dragged through the water 14 times before finally getting how to surf isn’t my idea of fun. Also, I was not too thrilled with drinking that much lake water. On run number 1, I failed to get up at all.

On run number 2 however, I finally figured out what to do and got to do some wakeboarding on my first try. When I got up, my friends were cheering but I was yelling at them to take a damn picture before I fell back down. Of the 9 times I got up, I face-planted into the water 9 times. My friends would think that face-planting is my preferred way of stopping.

Finally, some more time to blog. Last week was a rough week at work with more 9 to 9 action. One would say that it’s difficult to leave when your boss is helping you to debug a problem in tandem.

Last weekend, my friend Alice came over from San Francisco to pay me a visit. To put some backdrop into this story, I’ve been trying to convince my friends to pay me a visit in Seattle once I settled down. Since Alice was doing a co-op term in San Fran, Alice and I made a bet that we would visit the person with the largest place. To my surprise, her place in San Fran is far larger than my 750 sq ft apartment here in Seattle. Regardless of the fact that I lost the bet, she was nice enough to come over - to my surprise since I only had a one day notice.

(I’m sorta mad that I lost the blurb below to wordpress draft saving… grrr, retyping)

So for one of the days Alice was over, we visited Mount Rainier. Mount Rainer could be easily seen in the Seattle skyline on a clear day, sorta like Mount Fuji on a clear day in Tokyo. We drove up the mountain and embarked on a good 3 hours of hiking, photo-taking, and mosquito-feeding. In hindsight, I should have bought some repellent since standing still to take pictures resulted in swarms forming around us. Alice ended up with 6 bites and I had a modest 4. We ended up hiking on a trail that brought us very close to the mountain glacier and I was quite surprised to hike through snow covered hills. Just hiking through the mountain trails reminded me of the time I climbed up Mount Fuji, except this was much more gentle. Pictures will do the talking again:

Anyway, I’m very glad that Alice was able to visit me. I’m always happy to host people at my new place.