Back

Well, here I am again. I’ve been thinking of all of the things I have experienced lately and wanted to say. I was quite proud of myself a couple of weeks back as I went to the eye doctor by myself and did it all in Japanese. For the most part, I didn’t have any problems. My last eye doctor visit was when I lived in Canada, so it’s been a while.
Going to the eye doctor or even regular doctor here is quite different. First of all, there are NO appointments! It’s really inconvenient. Usually when you go, you have to plan on being there for at least a couple of hours to go through all of the steps. (reception-nurse-doctor-reception to get prescription-getting medicine) When I went to the eye doctor, I got there about 5 minutes before the office opened, about one hour before the doctor started meeting patients. I was number 17 (I had to take a number). Of to course I had to fill in a form (much of which I couldn’t read-had to get the receptionist’s help). Then I waited for about 30 minutes. Next they called my name-and then the nurses did different checks-the glaucoma one (puff of air in your eye),checked my contact lens fit, then checked my vision using the chart thingy, and then I got to do it all over again without my contacts. The thing that surprised me at first is that this was all done in front of all of the other patients that are waiting to see the dr. They don’t use an alphabet chart here, they use circles that are almost shut (it looks like a circle) and you have to say whether the opening is on the left, right, top or bottom. Okay, I can handle that (was nervous about mixing up left and right though). {For Hiroki, they gave him a C figure and he had to make it the same as what he could see.} Then waited again to see the dr. Got into see him and the nurse helping him decided that I needed help. They wanted me to put my head in the usual thing-chin on the bar, forehead on the other bar-got it, no problem. The doc was shining a light in my eyes to check them. The nurse is pushing my head into that machine saying, “Just for a little bit-you can do it” or something like that and I was just getting annoyed. My head automatically pushed back against her hand, so of course she just pushed harder. So I told her that I didn’t really need her to push my head and that I could do it all by myself (I had managed up to this point). Thankfully she backed off.
I was there to get new contacts and so I got the prescription for them and the nurse let me know that I would have to come back in 3 months to get the next prescription and get my eyes checked all over again. Huh? 3 months?! So I asked if it was possible to get more and she said, if I ask, the doc might let me have 6 months worth all together. But I would have to come back immediately after that or he wouldn’t want to give me another 6 months worth. I was really lucky, I guess, to get a whole 6 month supply of contacts! My one question is what do people who work do? It’s so difficult to get there and see a doc without waiting forever. Oh well.

The other thing I have been thinking is weird is when I was walking to the station a while ago to catch a train to work, I said good morning to the (retired) crossing guard who is almost always there, stopping cars to make sure kids can cross the street safely. He said something about the weather getting cooler. I couldn’t hear him well as I was listening to music, I asked him to repeat it and said something back to him. Then on the other side of the street, there was a man walking the same way I was going and he said to me, “You couldn’t understand that, could you?” “You don’t know Japanese, right?” which in itself I don’t find very strange, but he said all of it in Japanese so I was thinking hhmm?

Enough for now.