Various Mature Conversations with Big Brother

Walking around Osaka Castle

Bro: Spiderman versus Samurai.. who would win?
Me: Ooh..tricky.. i wanna say Samurai
Bro: Mmm.. maybe but spidey would scale the moat wall
Me: But the samurai would pour hot oil on him
Bro: Nah cause he'd creep up on them and use his spidey senses
[long and involved conversation ensues detailing strengths and weaknesses]
Bro: Ookay.. James Bond versus Ninja
Simultaneously: Bond. Defo.

As you can see.. Osaka Castle is intensely blinged out.
Thanks to Maiko for the recommendation.

Lost in Kyoto
Bro: Is this the street?
Me: Na, not this street..
Bro: You're a street.
Me: Your face is a street
Bro: Your momma is a street
[much school girl giggling, especially from Sathish]

more bling than you can handle

Osaka is kinda like the real life version of Tokyo Drift. Impressive cars and neon lights. both best experienced at night. This was compounded by the fact that we had the dubious honour of staying next to what appeared to be a somewhat shady Yakuza run joint that pimped out luxury super cars. Sathish salivated everytime we walked past.. lamborghinis, bentlys, ferrari, astons etc

one of the more rediculous cars we saw..
too scared to take photos of the yakuza joint.. this was in a mall.

Enlightenment

Christmas was spent in Kyoto which is as close to perfect as it gets for Kyoto is the Japan of my imagination. Naturally my imagination is heavily influenced by Memoirs of a Geisha (the book, not the movie.. tsk).. so as we were strolling down a quaint cobblestone lane which followed a stream on one side and was lined by discrete japanese inns on the other, i spied a Geisha (whom are notorious for flitting on the peripheries of ones vision like a shimmery unicorn.. you know they exist, its just hard to prove) and quickened pace to catch up.. but amongst other things, Gieshas are trained in the art of evasion so i can only conclude that when she saw me she morphed into just another kimono clad person.

pagodas are at the end of every lane! not really.

fushimi inari.. hundreds upon hundreds of tori gates wind their way up the mountain

It truly is stunning and though i realise that my Japan exposure is still very limited, im gonna go ahead and say ..if there is anywhere in Japan where zen can be attained, its Kyoto. Interestingly, during the war, the decision was made to leave Kyoto untouched due to its cultural and historic significance.. so many of the temples and shrines remain not only standing but well groomed and packaged with a bow.

Tis the season...

Merry Christmas you beautiful shiny people you..

Hope santa is both kind and jolly.

Love and cuddles
Priya

Sayonara Kameda

Elective Phase One is over.
This makes me terribly sad for it is much too soon! i want more! but Time is being viciously relentless and though i tell it to just chill man, not only will it not listen, but it speeds up then looks back only to point and laugh with glee.. ive warned it that its going to die alone and it has no one but itself to blame but it seems to think itself as an island.. so then of course i told it that even hugh grant isnt an island, but Time doesnt hold much regard for mr. grant and fair enough so i dropped it there.

left my cosy ocean side womb on monday to pick up sathish at Narita.. however before i left, my surgical crew threw me a farewell party.. the aim of which was to "feed priya escalating craziness but only describe to her in graphic detail what it was after she has finished"

some of the crew

with hindsight, this has worked particularly well for me as i now have no guilt over eating both whale and horse.. of which horse i can testify to be incredibly good, both raw and cooked.

horse sashimi


every dish exquisitely presented

Other less crazy foods i consumed include:

1. beef tongue
2. sea urchin
3. raw eel
   
4. fish eyes
5. fish liver
6. natto - fermented soy beans

feeding on flesh

oh yeah.. i totally scored McFlurry's digits. He was drunk and probably doesnt understand the subtle implications of "crazy about you ♥" but thats soo not the point.

Work Ethic

I met a junior resident who hasnt left the hospital in two months. He has literally lived here for the last 60 days, working from 6 in the morning to 12 at night. Rinse. Repeat. He said next week, he switches rotation and gets half a day off on saturday. He was giddy with excitment. I could only stare.


He then introduced me to a senior resident who once returned home only to discover that his lights werent working.. or his stove ..or his heaters because the power had been cut.. as had his phone and internet. The man hadn't been home in so long that he forgot to pay his bills .. the several reminder notices they sent out remained unopened stuffed into his overflowing mailbox.


Many of the surgeons` wives and children live in Tokyo so they often only get to see their family once or twice a month, as explained by Sensei K, chief of surgery.. who sees his family less often because the man is an awesome genius of a Machine powered solely by surgical procedures.


These people put the rest of us mere humans to shame making eating and sleeping seem like a luxury.

9:00pm. Someone broke their spleen.
worth noting that the scrub bays and theatre doors are entirely hands free, motion activated swish.

More Surgery

I think im all surgeried out.. reached surgical saturation if you will.

This is perfect timing on my part being that i leave soon.. 2 days in fact.. and those two days are the weekend.

Having been given the freedom to choose what surgeries i want in on, i might just lay low and get reacquainted with the magical land that is the residents den.. where coffee, the life blood of every doctor here, is both free and freely flowing. The big screen TV is in high def to enjoy the classic Japanese Samurai dramas.

I also discovered early on that the den is a subscriber to the New York Times. This is significant on two levels: it is english so no one 'cept moi seems to care for it and it is brilliant. assuming eating and paying bills wasnt an issue, it would totally be worth the grand and a bit subscription fee back home. Every surgery we finish, we have "recovery" time where i run off to get my coffee/NYT fix. Im up to date with Obama. So far so good on that front. The Mumbai bombings. Civil unrest in Bangkok. I`ve never been quite so worldly as i am here in Japan.

i love this photo. a nurse took it on her phone..

im pretty sure im just walking to the cafeteria but i look pretty damn important doing it.

yuckyness scooped out of a human.

you probably have this slurping around in you. youre disgusting.

My brother is better than your brother

Sathish is coming to Japan!
He and i shall ride super fast trains together so we may get to where we want to go super quick then wait at the station until the bus comes in some 8 hours later so we can be all "beat you"
And we shall experience Christmas/New Years in yet another different country
..Its becoming a weird tradition to not spend Christmas in the same country as our parents.

Regardless, I`m so excited I could form a band, call it the Pointer Sisters and write a song about just how excited i am.
But I won`t.

More Fun with Engrish

"we rejected his colon but now he has mets so we will reject his liver too"
...i think he meant resect but reject is colourful.

---

resident: "his chief complaint was screaming"
me: "screaming?.. like.. yelling?"
resident: "no no, X-ray Pliya San"
me: "ooh. screening."

---

sensei: "she is a 40 year old woman and she speaks english. you should take a history from her"

if i had known to swap every she with he, woman with man and her with him, i wouldnt have wasted half an hour searching for a nonexistent english speaking female.

---

listening to a japanese person say "irregularly irregular" never gets old

I Hate Dentists

They are the devil`s spawn, sent from the flaming tarry pits of hell to torment the good, virtuous people of this world.

I have a friend who is a dentist.. the only possible explanation for which is that she was abused as a child and though i recognise this and endeavour to accept her in spite of her (abysmal) career choice.. it`s fair to say that right now, i hate her too. She and her kind suck. How do you live with your selves? Inflicting endless, debilitating, excruciating pain.. then pretending like you`re sorry.. like it hurts you more?!... LIES. Bastardos! All of you. Dont think we dont see through you..

You are the reason for all the pain and suffering in this world. If you all just went away, wars and pestilence would follow. Global warming would reverse.. the economic crisis would remit.. Michael Jackson would be normal.. peace and love would reign.. The world would just be a more tolerable place.

ARGH!!!asdf;klhjdf;lkasdf

Lazy Sunday

Theres a lot to be said for living but a stones throw away from the sea.

I wandered for about 5 hours along the beach today.. In those five hours:

1. I was asked by a group of fishermen to join them. Something bit my line and I gave it to the experts to reel in.. tragically, it got away but I got caught up in their excitement.. was 100% prepared to fling the nearest person into the to sea to grab the beast.


look at how BIG it was gonna be



2. Joined an elderly man in his quest for polished stone.. at the end of which discovered why he sought pieces of rock when he presented me with a bracelet he had made and bowed so deeply his hat flew off so we had to chase after it.


3. Met one of the docs I work with who insisted on taking a bunch of photos of me. Thankfully digital means no wasted film.


4. Was invited to enjoy traditional green tea with a minuscule japanese woman and her proportionately minuscule husband

God I love this place. It has all the charm and peaceful cohesion that a small (on the japanese scale of things) sea side community ought to have.. the real japan. Fringed with tenbo rice paddies and farmers who often pay their land tax with bags of rice. Unadorned, unadulterated japan, minus the urban commercialisation of tokyo.

Have further concluded that when I grow mature enough to desire a mortgage, I want to live near a vast body of water.

Conversation with a Junior Resident

JR: "So now we will go insert the Energy Tube into patient"
Me: "The what?"
JR: "The Energy Tube Priya"
Me: ...blank look...
JR: "You no have Energy Tubes in New Zealand?!"
Me: "Not to my knowledge but it sounds like we should definitely get in on that"
JR: ...polite laughter... "Yes, I think make very helpful"

So we rock along to insert what in my head has become a strobing rainbow tube mixed with elements of PowerThirst (made with real lightning!) only to discover that he meant a NasoGastric Tube, aka NG Tube.

Monumental anticlimax.

On the bright side.. I`ve succeeded in making the NZ medical system look like its from the dark ages. Unaware of the horror it would evoke, I accidentally admitted that we write patient notes.. with a pen, on paper no less.. how quiant and archaic. Here everything is computerised and a nurse accompanies us on rounds with a tablet pc. Now no NG tubes. Oopsies.

There`s one at every hospital..

I spent the day attached with the McDreamy of this hospital.

He is worshipped and revered by the entire female species here and no doubt some male. Both staff and patients have fallen for his very genuine charm and very good looks.. it appears no one is immune, cept maybe me as i've yet to be afflicted by the yellow fever and much of the time im distracted by trying to decipher what hes saying as he valiantly searches his brain for english terms to communicate with me.
“this patient is a little bit quite a lot hypo fluid so we must stop his diaries” (this patient is

rather hypovolaemic, we must stop his diuretics)
“are you ready priya? okay! one, three, san!” (as we transferred a patient)
“This is Dr H, he is a cerebellist” (neurologist)

We were in surgery from 7am straight through to 4pm, no breaks.. at which point JapaneseMcDreamy or as i secretly call him, McFlurry..its less funny in type than it is in my head.. anyways, pretty doctor remembered that we hadnt had lunch yet (while I had been glancing longingly at the clock since half 12).. so he proposed we have lunch together.. he bought, I ate.. and watched as the little fires lit up in the nurses eyes at the prospect of having him sit with them, then extinguished we walked past their tables to sit by what would have appeared to be our intimate lonesome. It probably doesnt matter that hes married with a one year old, theyre never going to help me when I have a question now.

It is also during this lunch that an incident involving chopsticks and an unidentifiable meat substance has rendered my white coat.. not so white.

sweet view from one of the patient rooms

Lapse of Judgement?

Ingy, my insider source and secret weapon, also informs me that im on the Urology team for surg when i get home.
Urology!?
As i recall, it was my second option so i clearly wanted it at some point but.. I`m having a hard time believing I not only put that down, but prioritised it.. although as i was alternating between weeping and gently rocking on my bed, i got to thinking about my reasons for doing so last night and convinced my self they made sense..

1. Kidneys are somewhat important
2. You get no real urology exposure in clinical years and penis`s and kidneys might just be your calling in life and you`d never know and how sad would that be? very sad priya, very very sad.
3. The jocks of medicine work there, with their rodney wayne hair and flash stripey suits.. which means your hair will be tamed by sheer embarrassment factor alone
   

How bad can it be? ...

Its Business Time

This morning I got lost. Then I got found. Then I promptly got lost again. Luckily, having full insight into my pitiful sense of direction, I set out 30mins early for what should be a 6 min slow shuffle, and made it with 4 to spare. Yay me! You`ll all be happy to know, I've since gotten lost enough times to roughly know my way around. Myself and the reception staff at each wing are well acquainted.

Sensei K. is Chief of Surgery and i have the honour of having him as my Surg Supervisor. I met him yesterday at which time he announced that he has arranged for T, one of his residents, to wed me ..as he explains it "Everyone wins Pliya!". I am to facilitate T's aspirations of moving to NZ and T is to protect me for it has been a while since the surgical fraternity have seen a female surgeon and Sensei K worries for my safety. So then i had a moment of panic where i thought he thought i was an actual proper surgeon there to help with their outrageous work load. The panic must have shown because he quickly reassured me that everyone here was most gentlemanly and they were much too busy for consensual sex nevermind the hassels of nonconsensual.. while i was babbling about how i was only a baby intern and needed a parent/caregiver to hold my hand. Off to a good start.

NB: I later discovered that the person sitting beside me was in fact female.. but this was not immediately apparent until it spoke.

Ingy informs me that TI intro day was more fun than one can poke a stick at. I am most distraught to have missed this event. I think i shall comfort my poor self with a nice hot bath.

Konichiwa Kamogawa

A 3 hour train ride sees me in Kamogawa City, which as it turns out, isn't at all near Chiba. My bad. Its better which i'm okay with. Apparently Chiba is a relative hole while Kamogawa is all “small” city charm sea-side view-tastic awesomeness. And it delivers. Sprawling mountains, glittering blue sea, amazing surf and lets not forget the random Sea World with killer whales that promises fun for the whole family, just down the road..

I was picked up by supervisor #1, Dr DG, an american Infectious Disease specialist who splits his time between Japan and the States. He kindly gave me a tour of the city, took me to the local super for supplies (where I also met my first Kiwi of this trip.. ahh lilting kiwi accent, how i've missed thee) then dropped me off at my very own apartment. It took the combined intelligence of an Infectious Diseases Consultant and a 5th Year Survivor to open The Door. two locks plus a bolt was more alarming than reassuring but having toured the town and met the neighbours, ive also deemed it to be excessive.

My place is sweet. So sweet that I must post pictures! Observe apartment sweetness and commence envy:

my pretty white coat of power.. how long will it remain that white? watch this space [ --- ]

yes children, that is a HOT TUB in the bathroom that you can see. complete with smelling salts.
'nuff said.

God I feel grown up.
It'll pass.

Farewell Tokyo

riding the subway is negative fun when ones contacts have fallen out. the little station signs were not made for 6over7346 vision. squinting only made me look funny and eventually gave me a headache. i rode back and forth several times before making what i thought was the correct transfer. wasnt. very very difficult to explain to mr japanese metro man that i couldnt read the tiny metro map he kept referring me to. seriously.. try miming "my contacts fell out, i can not see". its tough. i also think he thought i just couldnt read in general because he slowed his japanese way the hell down. the kinda talk speed one reserves for children and retards. i have however made it back to the hostel and am applying for a seeing eye dog.

also just experienced my first earthquake of the trip.. we gently rolled around for about half a minute.. a little asian girl screamed and ran for the elevator of all places. this made me laugh which is impolite in the sheer panic! and mayhem! of a 2.3 richter scale quake and i received frowns of disapproval from her friends.

leave for Chiba tomorrow to start work on Tuesday.. am super excited.. in part because i wont have to share my room with 27 others. many of whom are australians and spend much of their time being loudly drunk and for reasons as yet unknown, yelling dingo. Bonus. and also because i've recovered enough from the ordeal that was fifth year to do some medicine and maybe even enjoy it.. woop.

to all those starting on monday... enjoy being big, bad TI's.
make me proud.

"Capsule" Hostel - Space Optimiser.
Behind those curtains is a box which houses your futon, a little shelf and a dim light.

a surprisingly comfortable coffin.

ReSpawn

Blogging via facebook is giving me more grief than even I, possessor of the patience of a monk (ha!), can handle.

So ive moved it here.. dependable, reliable Google.
Havent been here in blogger world for a while and was taking a trip back into nostalgia lane, reading through some of our South America meterial. Ahh.. hilarity and good times. I miss the gang.

I'll continue to post most of my photos on facebook.. so if youre not a facebooker.. then ...like, you should be..
but in the rare event that you're not and I like you (Loren, you rare breed of 21st century human you), I will post a select few piccys here for your viewing edification. My thats a big word.

okay. lovely to see you all, do come again but its bed time for me..

RePost

am tentatively trialling this whole blog thing out for the duration of my exile. dont know how well i'll do without scotty cracking the "someone needs to write a blog" whip .. i also cant promise it to be of a quality worth reading.. i can however guarantee an excessive use of ellipsis' and a complete lack of appropriate punctuation.. but its a-okay for i am in japan, the birth place of engirsh and i am but a lonely malaysian/indian/kiwi identity crisised kid, just trying to fit in.

have been exploring avidly since i arrived. was concious of the fact that i only had a week in Tokyo before i head off to Chiba for elective proper ..so many a long days on my poor wee footsies. tis paying off though, have seen most of what i wanted to see as dictated by various guidebooks. have got to the stage where i dont quite know what i want to do in exact minute detail. am considering riding the Yamanote train line loop endlessly tomorrow. apparently theres good "people watching" to be had by doing this. thank you lonely planet, you are both wise and compact.

Toshu-Go Shrine in the background accessorised with authentic face masked Japanese