june5

Today I got awoken by the sound of a silent alarm. Uugh-uggh, uggh-uggh. Over and over. It was around 630am. Great. So I was trying to read one of the Japanese books that I brought. Which I didn’t think was very helpful anyway. Finally got up at 730am. I’m usually up at 715 and go to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. There are only 3 sinks. This morning I had to wait for someone to finish. Then I went I got dressed, ate my banana and went out the door. I was already down the hill when I remembered that I forgot my lab coat. I went and got it and took the train to keio. The train by the way is ridiculously busy in the morning and evening when people are going home. And when I say busy I mean so crowded that there doesn’t look like there is anymore room. People are jam packed in a train. Pushing. There is even a sign for no molesting. I got to keio before 9am and went to use the computer in the lab. I posted all my blogs for the last few days and checked my email.

Matsuyama sensei came in and asked if I was tired. And got me some coffee. Then it was time to go to our lecture with yamazaki sensei. He talked to us about insurance in japan. The system is very different than the us. Everyone can be covered and there is separate insurance for the elderly because it is becoming a growing population. 70% of medication cost is covered by the government and the patient only has to cover the other 30%. And it costs the same to visit a doctor for a cold as it is to visit a specialist. This makes people go to the hospitals and clinics 2-3 more times than in the us. It was an interesting talk. He spoke English well and was excited to talk to use. He lived in ohio? For 2 years. It was about noon and naoko, yoko, kana, and take came to take us to lunch, but yamazaki sensei wanted to keep talking. About 10 minutes later he let us go.

We ate in the cafeteria and I had hot soba noodles. It was very good. We ate with mari and yumi. We went back to the room and they asked us which actors and actresses we liked. I said Angelina jolie and yumi said she liked tom cruise. Naoko said she liked Orlando bloom. And they said a Chinese actress. And we said zhang ziyi. It turned out to be the same person. Brandon needed to go to the bank, so naoko and kana took us. We went to the 711 which we had no idea there was a bank inside, but they didn’t exchange foreign currency. We went to another and got some ice pops on the way back.

Next was going to the keio university pharmacy. It opened a few years ago to give students practice. They fill prescriptions for a nearby nursing home and people in the community can get their medicine filled. They keep detailed pt hx, soap, med hx. They have med diaries so if they go to another pharmacy they can give that to the next pharmacist. they separate medications by weak or strong. They have their own machine to package medicine but it is a digital version. They have a huge backer cell machine. They also lock up morphine and oxycontin. They have a counseling room and dexa scan. They have models for the foods that a diabetic patient can measure by. 80kcal = 1 unit of insulin. Every model was one unit of insulin. Interesting.

It was around 430 when we got back. Dinner wasn’t until 530 so we hung out in the room and I worked on Japanese and Brandon was on a computer. Miho came in later to tell us that they were almost done with the schedule. She was excited that I was studying Japanese. I got asked if I was tired again by take san. I must have bad jet lag. I was also thinking that maybe the allegro I’m taking is making me drowsy. It’s not 100% non-drowsy. So maybe. They went over the schedule with us and we are going to many fun places! Tokyo Disney land, Tokyo dome, odaiba, harajuku, akihabara, shibuya, kamakura, Shinjuku, tsukishima, tsukiji fish market, shiodome. Very exciting.

We went on our way to the yoshi restaurant to eat oden. We took the jr line (me, b, saori, miho, and yoko). We got a little turned around but we found our way. We had salad, oden, yakitori, pastry with blueberry sauce, and omelet. It was very delicious! Then we went bowling. Takeshi met us there. We divided into two team: team one – Brandon, miho, and yoko. Team two – take, me, and saori. It was a close game but my team ending up winning by one point 329 to 328! It was about 10pm and we had to leave because there wasn’t enough time to play another game and get home to the dorm. we were on the jr line when a drunk man bumped into yoko and saori. Yuck! We headed back and when we were about to go down daimon station and a another drunk man asked directions for oedo line. They were down the way when Brandon and I saw one trying to go down the up escalator. We went down the stairs instead very quickly. I caught the 1035 train and came in and took my shower. I was getting out when naoko was getting dressed and she saw me full on. Great! This is so awkward. Oh well. And miho is so cute and sweet. She said that she wanted to get along with us so she is trying to speak English more. I think her English is very good. They are really so good to me and Brandon. They have treated us so well and have showed us around and taken us to dinner.