Best Guesses

So I went into hospital for four days to have an operation on my ankle.  The hospital was fine, the operation was standard and everything is healing up nice and quickly.

Apart from the insurance company fighting me, and the hospital telling me that I can send money to them via the post to pay for bills, they can't remotely send me money (I'm not eligible for the entire cost of the procedure due to my income).  Funny how it's incredibly easy to give them money, but requires dozens of forms and signatures (each costing more money) and a great deal of difficulty to get money back.

Obviously their tactics work and some number of people don't claim the money back, otherwise they wouldn't employ tactics like these.

Remember, this is a hospital.

Really classy.

Anyway, look at this big old pot of money and guess how many yens are in there.

I took this down to the post office today and found out the value, which I'll reveal at a later date.

The coppers are 10 yen, the gold ones with a hole are 5 yen, the small silver ones are 1 yen with the occasional 100 yen piece in there too.  1,000 yen is about a fiver right now if that helps (it doesn't, exchange rates don't mean anything at the best of time).

How much do you reckon?

Boy, What a Day

So as has been my custom since coming to Korea, I awoke at 5AM.  My routine is actually surprisingly healthy, as I've a lot of time to prepare food in the mornings.  Today however, I thought I'd push the boat out even further and do my first clothes cleaning; what a mistake.

I'll go right ahead and say it, I didn't check the washing machine outlet.  I assumed it would drain into the drain, which, in fairness, it kind of did.  The problem is that the drain in question was covered by a recessed plastic block, meaning twenty centilitres of fluid filled the recess, while the rest poured out all over the floor in the utility room.  This was happening while I was having a shower, and by the time I'd finished, there was water everywhere.  The room is quite small, and the washing machine is enormous; the resulting pool could have housed any number of aquatic animals.  They would have to be washing machine safe, of course, but I might well have kept an aquarium back there.

So this happened around twenty minutes before I was due to leave for school.  I didn't know whether the utility room was entirely waterproof (it is thankfully) so I started bailing out with the bin, (the only waterproof container I could find) running to the sink and back, getting almost as much water in my flat as in the sink.

So eventually I just gave up, and headed to school.

Sports day was great fun - the Korean teachers (and some children) played the English teachers; (also with some children) but the score was rather unsatisfactory.  I'm talking football now, by the way.  It was a 1-1 draw, and it is only in playing football that we are reminded what a loathsome game it is.

I was initially afraid of hurting the Korean teachers, being somewhat larger than they were - but I need not have feared.  They were throwing shoulders and barges while being nippy around the park.  The whole thing was good fun, and the kids loved it.

After school I had my customary hospital visit, for the health insurance scheme.  I had three blood samples taken, (I didn't pass out or vomit for the first time ever!) eyesight checked, (which was funny, because the woman only knew the numbers 4 and 7, and the letters X and C, so I had a 1/4 chance of guessing correctly anyway) hearing test, blood pressure taken, height measured, weight measured, (85kg, +5kg since Christmas, I think my new target will be 90kg) the pee in a pot test, (for what reason, I don't know (answers are welcomed)) a chest x-ray and a basic dental check.

The whole thing was pretty painless, except of course for them taking all my blood.  One of my colleagues even asked me what the hell happened after I'd come out of the hospital, because my eyes were sullen all of a sudden.  That's what drastic blood loss does to you.  Three vials.  Was that really necessary?

So I came back to the room, drained the utility room (it transpires that a simple bung removing operation was the solution to the flooding.  Wish I had known that earlier!) and am shortly going to take a shower.

After today (27 deg C Humidity unknown, but pretty high) with all the stress and running around, the lesson plans for next week can wait.