This may not be a great post. At the moment, I'm wearing a patch over my left eye, and I feel as if some vital elements of my right brain function have been shut away from me. Likely this will not be the most creative or aesthetic or flowery of posts.
Let's start with Monday, when we rode in comfort at upwards of 200 mph to the Echigo-Yuzawa high speed rail station near Niigata in Japan, all for some serious sake tasting. I was too busy with the drinking to take a picture, so I'll just steal one from the Internet.
Courtesy: Internet
There are 117 tasting stations. Each large shot of sake costs less than a dollar. I believe that I tried 15 varieties. Near the end of it, the taste room manager gave me a free bottle of pretty good stuff. I don't know why he did that; this is our third trip there in six years, and it's my first freebie. I'd like to think it's because I finally reached some secret threshold of quantity drank without becoming obnoxious, but that's probably not the case.
Tuesday was to be a travel day to Taiwan. I woke up with two purchased bottles of sake next to me and no memory of having bought them. I do have a vague recollection of my old boss and I passing around the missing free bottle on the train. I hope that we finished it and that I didn't disrespect a nice gift by leaving some of it to be thrown out.
I also woke up with a stinging, tear-leaking, and heavily bloodshot left eye. I've had trouble with one eye or the other from time to time over the last six months. I haven't had them looked at, because I don't have health insurance. It always happens to me while I'm sleeping, and I wake up with pain and blurriness in one eye or the other. One day, it will happen to both eyes, and I'll be truly screwed.
My main fear then was that the immigration authorities in Taiwan would see it as something contagious like pink eye and that they would not let me in. Having the stewardess on the plane point it out to me twice did nothing to allay those fears.
At the airport in Taiwan, just before customs, they have a health station gate set up where you walk past an infrared camera (checking for fevers), as well as the dutiful glare of health officials. Well, they must not have been
that dutiful: I closed my eyes and ducked through the far end of the gate, unchecked.
I gave it all of Wednesday to get better, hanging around the hotel room and skipping meetings and whatnot. I had noticed that the trouble always either started, or got worse when I slept, so I tried to sleep for small stretches and to open the eye as much as possible.
It got worse. On Thursday morning, I woke up after the last quick nap with most of the sight gone in the eye. We were due to meet with my old company's biggest Taiwanese vendor at 10am. I sent them an email spelling out my predicament and asking them if they could take me to a doctor or a clinic that would take cash.
Having just $250 USD worth of Taiwanese dollars on me, I converted another $250 down in the hotel lobby. Anything beyond that could be covered with credit cards.
The Taiwanese are great people: polite, thoughtful and caring as a rule. Yes, I'm sure there are jerks here, but I've never run into one. Their political reality has been shaped almost entirely by 60 straight years of my country's bumbling and schizophrenic foreign policy.
I could write a huge long post on Taiwan's post-WWII history and how the US and China have completely ****ed it up at almost every turn, but that's beyond the scope of this post, and my poor good right eye is already being heavily taxed here with double duty.
Cliffs: In spite of all the ham-handed meddling from superpowers, Taiwan is a highly productive and stable democratic close ally of the US, and filled with some great people.
The vendors took me to a clinic. They helped me fill out the forms, and they somehow got me to a doctor early in spite of a full waiting room.
I have a torn cornea.
Here's the deal as far as I can understand it: I'm very nearsighted, and that makes my eyes (or something in my eyes) larger than usual. That feature makes them subject to being torn up more easily. It wasn't sleeping that was causing the wound, it was opening my eyes after I slept. So I guess I have to be more careful when I open my eyes.
In Taiwan, they don't have pharmacies, per se (sorry AlwaysFolding!) They just give you the medicine you need at the clinic. JFC, why don't
we do that (sorry AlwaysFolding?)
The bill came due.
Doctor's visit.
Eye Test.
Eye Patch and Tape.
Full course Antibiotics.
Eye Drops.
Other Eye Drops.
Our vendors insisted on paying the tab, and I got into a big argument with them about that. This wasn't a free dinner to be expensed, this was personal medical treatment.
I lost the argument and they wouldn't take my money, but I at least got them to tell me how much the bill was...
So, in a day or so, I'll take the eye patch off, and hopefully I'll be able to see again. I'm anxious about that part, but I'm anxious about everything, so that's nothing new.
Last edited by suitedjustice; 11-08-2018 at 06:07 PM.