Holy Donkey Balls

As it turns out, it only takes a few days of not sleeping to send a person mad.

I caught the flu from a bar floozy on Saturday night, returning home entirely unawares.  I felt a bit rough on Monday, felt about the same Tuesday and then BAM!  I struggled through work on Wednesday but left after all my classes had finished, a couple of hours early.  Thursday was a trip to the hospital for my scans, with enough energy left over to get home and sit on the sofa, sweating into it.

Friday was a trip to the hospital to get the results of my scans, talk to the doctor, then a road trip to the local county capital city for my visa.  That was a long day.

Saturday was a sit on my ass doing nothing day, as was Sunday.  On Sunday, things got worse.  It felt like I had an ear infection, then the glands under my chin (#EDIT# hahaha, I meant in my neck) swelled to make moving my head impossible, and I had no painkiller to combat it.  Every time I swallowed, it hurt.  Not a little bit either.  I couldn't cough to clear my lungs, or swallow to clear my throat.  It's that which makes it so painful, knowing that you're going to cough a hundred times, and clear your throat (involuntarily) a hundred more.

It really sucked, and I didn't sleep.  This after struggling to sleep the few nights prior, meant I didn't go into work on Monday.

But here I am, on Tuesday, feeling substantially better.  I still ache, my joints still hurt a bit, my neck is sore and my head throbs, but I've crested the hill.  I can eat, I can drink, I can laugh and play.  I am better.

And I have grown as a person:

Never again will I kiss a random floozy at a bar.

Plans for Today, and the Past Few Days.

Firstly, I've lost my lucky coin!  I've lost my lucky rmb, so I'm debating about whether to leave the room today or not!

So for the last few days I've been travelling around with various people, visiting various shrines and whatnot.  Yesterday I went back to Harujuku because there's just so much craziness there, a day really isn't enough.  So I went with the then lost, but now found, Australian girl and a Belgian called pascal.  It was a good day, but the crazy amount of walking meant I woke up with cramp in the middle of the night.  That was painful.  But what was even more painful was me remembering that to stop reoccurring cramp you should let  the muscle spasm until it naturally finishes, rather than stretching it off.  This probably only applies to sport, but I applied it last night and sat there for about a minute in agony, before deciding to stretch.  Now it just plum  hurts, like a pulled muscle or something.

So Ueno park is my destination today.  It's already quite late, but there are half a dozen museums and interesting sights within this park, so a single day won't be enough; I'll scout it out today and see if it's worth investing further time in.  It's only a twenty minute walk away so it's not expensive.

That is assuming I don't cramp up in the middle of the street of course...

It's a shame  it's not a train journey away though because getting on the train here is fun; the locals immediately move away from you, because you're a scary foreigner, and if possible they relocate entirely.  It essentially means if I can find a seat, I will have the entire thing to myself before the next stop.  I would imagine this becoming tiresome after a prolonged stay here, but the social networks formed around foreigners migrating into Tokyo are pretty interesting.  Essentially, for every person who is petrified of foreign people, there's another who sees them as a fashion accesssory for their group of friends, another who sees them as a fashionable boyfriend, and another who has been abroad and doesn't think of us/them as a curiosity.  It's quite unlike anywhere else I've been.

I need to get something to eat...