The Kids are All Right

 It was spring break, and after so long I finally took that trip to Japan that I booked three years ago.  I made one more attempt to see the hotaruika - and failed.  I stayed at a campground at the beach, and all the conditions were there...but the squid were not.  So I give up.  I'll stick to bioluminescent insects from here on out.  On the other hand, I got to do something I couldn't when I lived here before - jet all over the damn place using the Japan Rail Pass.  See, when I was here before, foreign residents weren’t allowed to use it, so all my train travel had previously been done the hard way…with lots and LOTS of money.  Not that the pass is cheap, but by day 4 it had already paid for itself (maybe…art teachers don’t do math on vacation, bitches).

So I wasn't stingy when it came to getting around.  Whether it was riding the rails up to Niigata to see the yaoi temple or hopping a train down to Kyoto for the afternoon to celebrate my best boy’s promotion to manager, the country was my oyster.  It only took me a couple of hours to make it to Kyoto…and ALL its tourists.  The Kawaii Kingpin admitted that he missed the pandemic a very tiny bit on that account, and I had to sympathize…the days when people didn’t bring their screaming children to restaurants truly were glorious, in at least that respect.

Of course, as I told him, it’s different when the children in question are your blood relatives.  My niblings are perfect, of course.  To demonstrate (and totally not because I have a lot of odds and ends blogs to catch up on), let me take you back to last summer.  I was planning to take Princess and Dirt Devil to the anime con, but a poorly timed water leak at the hotel I booked caused me to reconsider.  Instead, I took them and Monkey out for a day o’ fun with their favorite aunt.

We started at Barnes and Noble.  This is part of what makes these kids awesome; I can tell them I’m taking them to a bookstore and they’re excited about it.  After picking up some manga volumes, a movie, and some games, it was time for lunch.  Dirt Devil suggested sushi, so I found a place in West Omaha that had sushi, ramen, and a few other things, and ordered a bunch of food.  Monkey wasn’t sure about it, so we ordered a sweet and sour chicken to be sure he wouldn’t starve.  Guess what was the only thing left at the end?  They were especially huge fans of ramune.

After a quick stop at home for the bathroom we went to play mini-golf and waste money at the arcade.  Was there, perhaps, a bit of a Japanese theme going?  Whether or not I intended there to be, yes, there was.  I wish I could take credit for helping them to become the baby otaku that they are today, but in all honesty they have come to it on their own.  I mean, I DID show them Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Howl's Moving Castle, as well as a few episodes of Naruto and My Hero Academia.  But while Princess' tastes in anime and mine are nearly identical (Hanako-kun and Bungou Stray Dogs?  Yes, this is a girl after my own heart!), Dirt Devil likes One Piece.  ONE PIECE?!?  Also known as, the anime that I never even started - I read one chapter of the manga and decided this was not for me.  But he likes it.  And while Monkey hasn't gotten into anime much, he's definitely a gamer...his favorite character is Link, and when I asked him what I could bring him from Japan, he just asked for Pokemon everything.

After the arcade we went to my favorite ice cream place, Coldstone, and ate a shit ton of ice cream (Okay, I ate a shit ton...I think each of them took theirs home and stuck it in the freezer).  While this might be considered bad "mom" behavior - spoiling your kids by buying them whatever they want and loading them up on sugar - it seems like excellent aunt behavior.  Fortunately, my brother and sister-in-law are tolerant...if I want to take them out for the day, they're not too picky about where we are going.  They behave and we get along pretty well, and their parents get a day to do whatever they need to do, as responsible-type adults.  

Hopefully they'll still feel that way in a few years when they graduate and I take them on Le Grand Tour.  I'm pretty sure I already know what country they'll want to visit.

Otaku Pilgrimage: Garden of Words

So, it's been more than a month since I came back from Japan.  My 6 faithful readers have probably been wondering if I was going to write anything else about it, and honestly, I kind of wondered the same thing.  BUT one of my projects for this summer is to catch up on my backlog of posts, so I'm starting here: the Otaku Pilgrimage.  Specifically, the setting for most of the film Garden of Words, Shinjuku Gyoen.

This is not the mecca I originally intended to get to this time around, but I couldn't bring myself to go to Shimokitazawa when I got back to Tokyo, even if the live shows DID start earlier than they would here.  On the other hand, Shinjuku Gyoen was in the neighborhood I was staying in...approximately.  I still took a train two stops, because a.) my JR Pass was in its final hours and I wanted to get as much out of it as I could, and b.) my feet were busted as shit by that last day.  And for that reason, when I got out of Sendagaya station and was unsure which direction I should go in, I looked carefully at Google Maps to try and be sure I knew where the entrance was.  This was a futile move, because apparently the main gate for Shinjuku Gyoen is no longer the original location.  There's apparently a sign that points you in the right direction, but it's not visible when you come OUT of the station, so that's a fail on somebody's part (it might even be mine).

The park is pretty big, so I also scoped out Google Maps to try and figure out where I was going, rather than aimlessly wandering around.  If aimless wandering is your thing, more power to you - Shinjuku Gyoen is a beautiful park - but I was going back to Otome Road after the park, because the Lashinbang there had been working on a grand reopening the night before, and I still had money I needed to spend!  So I knew roughly where I needed to go before I entered the park, and headed in the direction of a small picnic shelter immediately.

In the movie, this is where the two main characters bump into each other, and gradually get to know one another.  For the greatest "pilgrimage" value it really should have been a rainy school day, but a sunny Saturday was all I had left.  The male protagonist talks about how when it's rainy, he can't go to school - something draws him down different paths.  He sits and draws on the bench while the woman he meets there drinks canned coffee.  I sat down and drew in my sketchbook for a while to try and get into the right mood, but - like the staircase at the end of Your Name - it seemed like this had become a bit of a tourist attraction, so I tried not to monopolize it for too long.  

Close to the shelter is a building called Goryo-tei (or the Taiwan Pavilion).  It's a pretty distinctive building and the landmark that let me know exactly where to find the correct shelter.  The pond stretches around both areas, and everything was green - kind of a shock coming from Mongolia, where only now is it turning fully green.

Another thing I was looking forward to is the wisteria.  I'd been in Japan for nearly a week, and although I'd seen it here and there, I hadn't yet had the chance to smell it.  In case you don't know, wisteria has the most amazing fragrance, and it seems strange to me that it's not used in more perfumes or candles.  So I finally got the chance to experience it - the first time in 4 years, since it only blooms in spring.

I struggled with Tokyo when I first moved to Japan.  There's a feeling of magic and history that saturates the streets of Kyoto that's just not apparent in Tokyo.  However, over the 2 years I lived in Yokohama, I slowly discovered it, hiding in small shrines by the wayside and the occasional crumbling building; it doesn't reveal itself for just anyone.  I think this is one of the reasons I love Makoto Shinkai's films so much.  He gets it - he notices the way two trains veer away from each other, or the potential in hiding from the rain.  It was nice to see it again in my last night in town.

Woman of Culture

Once upon a time I went to the Louvre, and in the Louvre, there are all these paintings by Rubens commissioned by Catherine de Medici.  Apparently (I say, because apparently I did not post a blog of my thoughts from the Louvre) these were intended to be a kind of visual biography, but I remember thinking at the time that if I was a hot blooded Italian woman who was also queen, I would have been appalled at the lack of good looking nekkid dudes.  Not a single eggplant in the whole cornucopia, if you catch my drift, and that just seemed wrong.  I would have called Peter-Paul into the palace and said, “Lovely work as usual, Ruby, but could you add a few naked men?  Why are they naked?  Has anyone ever asked why the women in paintings are nude…there are literally tits out all over the place, JUST GO AND PAINT THEM!” 

Well, now I have a theory about that.  Apparently, the problem was that she just wasn’t a fujoshi.  At some point during the pandemic, I read an article about a temple near Niigata, Kugamiyama Kokujou-ji.  Now, if you’ve read any of my Japan posts at all you may find yourself thinking, “Oh.  Goody.  Another temple she just HAD to visit.  #sarcasm.”  My retort would be that in this quirky country called Japan there’s ALWAYS something new to discover, even when it comes to something as seemingly redundant as Buddhist temples.

So here’s the story.  Kugamiyama Kokujou-Ji came up with the brilliant plan that they could get more visitors by adding some art to the temple.  Enter my new favorite nihonga artist, KIMURA Ryoko.  The panels cover the external walls of the main temple, and feature - among others - the original Minamoto-kun (aka Minamoto no Yoshitsune) and a demon (oni) named Shuten-Doji.

There is, however, one slight, tiiiiny little difference between Kimura Sensei’s work and how these figures are normally portrayed.  Namely, a LOT less clothing.  Okay, so just in case you’re new around here, there’s a subculture of women (originally Asian ones, but it has become a global phenomenon) that enjoy stories and artwork depicting relationships between men.  Of course, there is a whole range of what kind of relationships those are, with a whole lot of ambiguity, particularly at the more innocent end of the spectrum.  There’s probably a lot to be analyzed here about the patriarchy, the female gaze, etc, but my master’s degree is a distant memory, with two years’ worth of dust on the ol’APA-style handbook, so - if this is news to you - suffice it to say that two beautiful men are ALWAYS better than one.

Ok, and if you’re into history and lore, you might realize - for example - that it was an older member of the famous military clan (Minamoto-senpai, if you will), Minamoto no Yorimitsu, who dealt with Shuten-doji.  But if you’re like me, that’s not what y’all are here for.

I mean, if it was, I guess Minamoto Raiko with Shuten-Doji would make a helluva enemies-to-lovers trope, but I digress.

Anywho.  All of the figures in the the murals have some kind of connection to the temple (according to Sora News, anyways - I’m having a hard enough time typing this on my broken keyboard as the Shinkansen darts in and out of mountains to be very thorough in my research).  Apparently Kimura’s vision was to depict all of them living in harmony, even though they were from different times and different backgrounds.  Kinda cheesy, I know, but it’s a good excuse to paint dudes chilling in a hot tub, and nobody hates an onsen episode.  I mean, not unless you also hate fun.

The link that originally introduced me to this cultural wonder also reported that the murals were slated to be removed about a year ago.  Apparently not everyone appreciates the nude male form, or thinks it’s appropriate decor for a temple.  Japan was still closed to tourism back then, and there may have been some gnashing of teeth when I thought that I’d miss it…at least until I discovered Kimura’s Instagram, which features even more work with similar style and content.  Still, there’s something to be said for viewing art in specific contexts, so when I realized I was going to be chilling my heels in Toyama once again, I looked up Kokujou-Ji and was delighted to see that recent photos on Google Maps included the paintings.

One of the things about seeing these in person was I could tell that they were not painted with nihonga’s hand-mixed pigment paints.  This makes sense, as binder for the pigments is water-soluble, and thus susceptible to the weather.  Unless I’m mistaken, Kimura used acrylic, which is much more durable.  If you’re familiar with the anime Hoozuki no Reitetsu, there’s an episode in which Hoozuki gets one of his lackeys to repaint a mural in hell which has weathered over the years.  At the end, it’s revealed that the original painting was by Hokusai.  That is the last thing we’d want happening to these masterpieces, so even though I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to see the way the pigments sparkled in the sunlight, I have to admit that this is for the best.

All that said, Kokujou-Ji is a pain in the ass to get to.  Google Maps clocked it at no less than 3 hours in either direction.  By the time I got to Yoshida station, I decided that time is money, and hailed a cab to take me up the mountain (the bus that would get me “close” would have taken an hour, and I would have had to hike 40 minutes after that!). When I went to Zao to see the foxes and I was frustrated by the lack of a bus, I told myself that someday I’d be back in Japan and I wouldn’t have to worry about taking a taxi all by myself, no matter how much it cost.

Well, that day finally came…and we’re not going to talk about how much that round trip taxi cost, because it now holds the record for my most expensive taxi ride in Japan.  Possibly of all time, but I’m still on vacation for 48 more hours, so I can’t account for inflation and conversion rates.  Besides which, I honestly don’t care.  It was 100% worth it to me to get to see the paintings, and you can factor in the lack of sweat from climbing a mountain as inflation, and the helpful tip that I return via a different station in order to catch the Shinkansen as the conversion rate.  

Week Without Socks

Before I get this party started, I feel like I should begin with a few disclaimers.  For starters, this blog takes a generally overdramatic approach to humor.  And uses a LOT of cursing.  If you're here you probably already know that, but it bears repeating.  Secondly, I hate hospitals.  Like, medical stuff in general is just squicky.  If I could go the rest of my life without ever having to interact with a doctor again, that would suit me perfectly.  And finally, my doctors were excellent.  While parts of my experience weren't entirely to my liking, the two doctors I primarily interacted with (the gynecologist and the interventional radiologist) were fantastic and - possibly most importantly - very patient with my histrionics.  Which is why I have left out names...this post is more about experiencing a fairly major medical procedure as an expat (I know, I know...I don't really write about the expat stuff much these days, but this was a doozy of an experience, and I thought it was worth writing about).

The previous paragraph makes it sound like I don't go to the doctor much, and that's definitely not wrong.  I DO avoid doctors (they can't tell you you're dying if you don't go to them in the first place), but it's not like I've never been to one overseas.  Actually, I think I've actually seen a doctor in every country I've ever lived in, not only for the standard visa health check, but for some small ailment or other.  Foot pain.  Constipation.  Food poisoning.  Mostly the kinds of things that they give you a prescription for and send you on your way in 15 minutes.  This time, though, was different.

Content warning: Lady Parts.  Also, Gratuitous Use of Capital Letters, but back to the first warning: if you're squeamish about women's reproductive health, I'm not sure what you're doing here, (my target audience is made of sterner stuff), but this is probably the time to close the tab.

So.  Back up about 6 years.  The first time I remember anything weird was my fourth Junk-To-Punk fashion show.  That morning the school went down to the river en masse to pick up trash, and my period went batshit crazy.  According to my estimates, I should have been fine with the tampon I used before leaving the school, but when I took the fashion victims back to the school I had to make a quick stop in my apartment to change clothes, which irritiated the fuck out of me.  Over the course of the next year, "batshit crazy" became normal, but while that was irritating, I was in my late 30s, and every woman my age that I talked to reported similar issues, so I figured this was just getting old.  Along the way I learned the "lite/regular/super" system of tampons I'd been using since my 20s also had "Plus Ultra" and "Bloodbath" iterations...which was good to know because super was no longer enough.

(If you're regretting sticking around for this, sorry, but I did warn ya.  Women bleed.  Fuck off).

Well, among the women I discussed this with, one was the Evil One.  She is probably the best friend I will ever have in this life, and she loves me very much, enough to be straight with me even when I would very much prefer to just Not Go There.  And she said, "Yeah, you really need to go to a gynecologist and get that checked out."  I ignored this the first time she said it, but eventually, for something else entirely, I took her advice (it was two years later, okay, but I DID go in the end).  That is another story that I won't be sharing in this blog post, involving High Blood Pressure and an Awkwardly Answered Question...but for the purposes of this story, the doctor found myomas.  I had to Google to figure out what the fuck those were, but before I could get "non-cancerous growths" out of the internet, she was explaining that they would try to remove them surgically, but based on the size and number they would probably need to do a hysterectomy.

I've always found the fact that this procedure is called a hysterectomy a bit comical as well as insulting.  Like just because I have a uterus I'm a bit unhinged?  But when the doctor suggested that they would need to remove it, I did get kind of hysterical (and this is definitely one of the reasons for the aforementioned high blood pressure).  I maintained my composure pretty well until I got back to my apartment, and then I Lost It.  Ironically, when I first learned about body changes in 4th grade and discovered that I would be stuck bleeding from anatomy I was previously blissfully unaware of ON A MONTHLY BASIS FOR THE NEXT 40 YEARS OF MY LIFE?!?!? I would have done anything to get rid of it.  Which I guess means I've matured somewhat since then, because a hysterectomy has huge consequences, and without even being aware of all of them, I knew I wanted to avoid them.

I wasn't thinking clearly enough to ask Google about alternatives until after 1 AM that night.  Imagine my shock when I learned that there are LOTS of alternatives, none of which the doctor had mentioned.  I'm not blaming her, BTW...skipping over everything else to surgery seems par for the course with uterine fibroids.  I kind of figured that maybe they weren't really options here...Mongolia isn't exactly on the forefront of medical technology.  But you know who is?  Korea - and I had already booked a ticket to spend my fall break there.  So I did some research, found that Seoul St. Mary's has a whole Uterine Myoma team, and made an appointment to get a second opinion.

I prepared myself for this visit by doing the bloodwork my doctor prescribed, and the MRI that she suggested.  I had a small freak out because the MRI came on a CD, and who the hell uses CDs anymore?  And the day before I left, the radiologist here talked to me about the MRI, and said that if I decided I wanted to, that they could do a procedure called uterine fibroid embolization here.  This was actually the procedure that I felt the best about.  UFE is clever.  Rather than cutting you open (or, possibly more horrifying, going in through your vagina past the cervix to nip the little bastards), the interventional radiologist goes in with a teeny, tiny tube through puncturing your artery (either the one in your wrist or the one in your leg) and uses real time x-rays to find the blood supply for the myomas.  When he gets there, he blocks it by shooting nanoparticles into the artery, which eventually causes the growths to shrivel up and die.  It's about 90% effective in alleviating symptoms, which in my case means I hopefully won't experience shark week on a monthly basis anymore (there are worse symptoms, btw, like needing to pee all the time or getting constipated...comparatively, a little anemia doesn't seem that bad).  And apparently it was a procedure that they CAN do here, if he was recommending it.

Which was all well and good, but I had already pretty much decided that I'd hit Seoul up on my way back at Christmas, get my procedure, and spend a couple of weeks crashing on my friend Happy Tree's couch til I was safe to fly.  The only problem was, when I talked to the doctor in Korea, she said I could just wait and see.  My anemia "wasn't that bad," and if two excruciatingly bloody days out of the month were my only symptom, it was okay (she has obviously never had that symptom while teaching a class of teenagers for 85 minutes straight, fully knowing that her feminine hygeine was NOT going to make it to the end of the block).  Maybe I should have said, "That's reassuring, but I'd rather have UFE and get it over with...can you make that happen?" but I didn't.  I went and paid my consultation fee back at the international clinic and left to eat a burger.

I guess I could have tried to schedule it with a different hospital in Seoul, or elsewhere.  The US is kind of out due to financial reasons, though, and other than Korea, I wasn't sure there was anywhere I wanted to try and get it done.  Maybe Japan, but that seems like it would be expensive, too.  The idea of putting it off didn't really appeal to me, and I also thought there were probably going to be more hoops - initial consultations, more tests.  Under the circumstances, I decided that if I could get it done here, that would be best, or at least easiest.  Although I did have one small trepidation...I didn't want to be the first one done in Mongolia.  I didn't ask that question directly, but I asked our office manager if there was any way to find out if a doctor had done a certain procedure, and she said she'd talk to her mom.  Within 24 hours she knew his history, and while she wasn't sure that he'd done UFE, he had 14 years of experience and was well known for being a good doctor.  From the previous interaction I'd had with him, his English was good and he had a reassuring manner, so I decided to go for it.

Well.  It was not quite as simple as that.  I had to schedule an appointment again with the gynecologist for the pre-procedure consultation.  In addition to scheduling me and telling me I needed a bunch of tests (including Covid...goody), she informed me I would need to stay in the hospital the night before and the night after, which freaked me the fuck out.  There's the fact that no matter where you are in the world, hospital food is shit, and trust me, that was pretty high on my "FUCK NO" scale, but there were more rational reasons I wanted to avoid a hospital stay.  See, thanks to the previous high blood pressure, I was now the proud owner of a wrist monitor, and I knew for a fact that it wasn't just that the pandemic had Done Things to my health...my blood pressure was completely normal when I took it at home.  It was only while I was at the hospital that it shot up.  Having Everest-scale blood pressure for an extended period of time seemed like a really, Really Bad Idea.  I also didn't think that I would be able to sleep at the hospital, and I've been in my skin long enough to know that rest is probably the most vital component to maintaining my health.*  Followed by food, which brings me full circle.  In the end, I didn't have to stay in the hospital, but there was a long, circuitous route to get there, and they really only let me leave because I told them I was staying with Engrish, so there wouldn't be stairs and if there was any problem she could help me get back to the hospital.  I should buy her a really nice Christmas present...

This is turning into a really long post...you might want to go get a drink if you didn't have one when you started.  I swear I'm trying to avoid unnecessary exposition, but this really has been an ongoing saga over the last two and a half months of my life, occupying most of my mental space.  That said, we've gotten all the way to the procedure itself, so hang in there.

So I was scheduled for Tuesday, November 29.  This is probably not the best time for a teacher to take a week off (the typical recovery time til you're back to work), but the week the doctor originally suggested we already had two teachers out, and the following week was my period, and I couldn't think of anything worse than that, if it was even possible.  The 29th was really about as late as it could be and me still be cleared to fly home for Christmas (officially there are no restrictions, but everything I read recommended avoiding travel for two weeks).  I got my leave approved, made my lesson plans - boring writing assignments that my students should have been able to do without me, although I haven't worked up the courage to actually read any of them yet) - packed so much stuff in a bag that it probably looked like I was moving in for a week, most of which I didn't use afterwards, because I was too weak to look at my phone, let alone crochet my blanket (seriously.  The nurse had to get my phome off the floor multiple times while I was in "day care").  And then showed up to the hospital over an hour late on the day of the procedure, because the traffic was fucking ridiculous.  And that was because I walked the last block...if I'd stayed in the Enkhaa Express, I probably would have been over an hour and a half late.

All things considered, I was flustered from the get go, but my doctors agreed to consider sending me home that day, they found hospital clothes in my size, and tested me for contrast dye allergy (apparently it's a different dye than they use for the MRI).  Somehow I managed to not chicken out, and found myself lying on a zoomy motor bed thing, with screens positioned down by my legs and a little x-ray device overhead (overhips???).  They started the contrast dye, and gave me another IV for my NSAIDs - not sure which one they used, but I was feeling pretty detached by the time they all came in and started the procedure.  They had to use the artery in my groin, which I wasn't happy about, because it meant I had to lie down for at least two hours afterwards...according to what I read online.  In actuality, it was 5 hours before they agreed to let me stand up.  You may be wondering what that means for going to the bathroom, as was I.  Initially they didn't put a catheter in my bladder, for which I was profoundly grateful...

Okay, you may be wondering about this hyperactive hospital phobia (nosocomephobia, if you like to know these things).  Please remember that all of this was 100% new to me.  In addition to the fact that I don't even like going to hospitals to visit, I've never actually been to one for myself.  The only time I've been under anaesthesia was when I got my wisdom teeth taken out.  My primary mode of dealing with illness is "ignore it and hope it goes away" and this has served me pretty damn well, even if I do say so myself.  So yes, having someone stick a pee-pipe in me was a major point of anxiety for me.  Until the procedure was over and the pain was kicking in, and I just KNEW that part of the reason it felt so bad was that I probably needed to pee.  When I told the nurses and they said I would need a catheter, I requested that a female nurse assist me with it, but otherwise bowed fairly gracefully to the indignity.  Maybe I covered my face while they were up in my bizness, but Baby Chicken Wing was telling the truth when she reassured me it wasn't that big a deal, even if I had to experience it for myself to believe her.  I honestly hardly felt it.

The procedure ended up taking 3 hours.  Everything I'd read online said it was usually over after an hour, so I guess I'm special.  The doctor explained afterwards that my uterine artery was longer than they were expecting, and it took them some time to locate the correct access point to block the blood flow.  Which, I mean, it takes as long as it takes, but by probably halfway through I was no longer in a state of dreamy detachedness brought on by a combination of sleep deprivation and pain meds.  I was pretty much fully lucid after an hour and a half.  I told them so, but I wasn't really experiencing any pain, so it wasn't really an issue - until it was.  Probably about the last half hour or so I could begin to feel the cramping that I'd read about, and I told the doctors that, but I still had to wait for the anaesthesiologist to come before they gave me anything.  And while she was administering the fentanyl, she remarked on my low pulse, seeming to think I had an irregular heartbeat and that I should come back to see the cardiologist.  To which I wanted to reply, "FUCK YOU."  Like, let me get through the current health issue before you conjure up a new one.

Which brings me to the vindicating portion of this post: IT REALLY MIGHT GO AWAY.

Because my previous approach is not entirely off-base - I'm not being completely frivolous.  Turns out iron deficiency triggers a bunch of related shit.  Everyone thinks if you're anemic, you're just tired all the time.  Which I am, but let's write that one off to being a teacher, because that is definitely a truey.  On the other hand, at some point in the last two and a half months I have googled everything I've experienced over the last 5 years that made me go, "Hmm, that's weird...guess this is what getting old is all about." All those things can be triggered by anemia.  Slower metabolism, lowered immune response, allergies, and yes, even arrhythmia can all be effected by the fact that your blood is too weak to carry around all the oxygen it needs.  Sure, it might not be fixed just by getting my iron up, but I'll still take a hard pass at immediately freaking out and going back this week to see a cardiologist...once the Red Sea ebbs and I've been taking these stupid iron tabs a bit longer, then I'll go in and see if it's still an issue.  

I'm not going to lie - waiting to leave the hospital was a nightmare.  Maybe this was my fault for insisting that I wanted to be an outpatient, but I didn't have my own recovery room.  As they wheeled me past the door I saw a sign that said "Day Care" (haha, so many jokes to make), and noticed there were two Mongolian men in the room.  I asked about the curtain and they pulled it, but it didn't go all the way around the bed, so I still had one old guy on an IV for something within view.  They gave me my phone, my tablet, my plushie, and a call button, and then they left.  Which, I guess I wanted to be left alone, but I also wanted to be comfortable, and that was Not Happening.  For example, I had to ask for pain meds three times before they finally gave me an IV of something (and I still have no idea what it was).  By the third time I asked I was on the brink of tears.  They also only gave me 9 tablets of ibuprofen to go home with.  From everything I've read, it sounds like UFE patients typically get a narcotic painkiller which they can take up to twice a day, as well as a prescription strength OTC painkiller and a stool softener.  Maybe something for nausea.  I didn't want to go home with a whole pharmacy, but if my pain had been worse, this could have been problematic.  

And - oof - the pain was bad enough!  I feel like The Literature kind of glosses over this one.  I mean, doctors tend to do that, tell you you'll feel some pressure or a little pinch when they mean it's going to hurt like fucking hell.  And I'm not even that sensitive to pain!  However, the websites I read gave the symptoms of embolization syndrome (crampy pain, flu-like symptoms including fever and chills, and nausea), without giving the degree.  For example, "crampy pain" should be interpreted as, "IMAGINE THE WORST CRAMPS YOU HAVE FUCKING HAD IN YOUR LIFE, EVER, AND THEN MULTIPLY THEM BY 10."**  Also, when it comes to nausea, someone should mention that you probably won't have had anything but small sips of water since midnight the previous night.  You're still going to throw up, but nothing's going to come out but bile (at least, not the first three times; the fourth time I had gotten to casa de Engrish, and she had bananas, so it was banana puke the fourth time, for a fun new twist).

Well.  Nothing lasts forever, and eventually they released me to go to Engrish's place.  I mean, first I had to pay my bill, and that was mendokusai, because the hospital doesn't do direct billing with our insurance company.  I only owed a little less than $2,000,*** and I had plenty of money in my accounts to pay for it.  However, there's a little problem with Mongolian banks...they don't like you to spend more than 3,000,000 tugrugs in one go at the same place.  So the cashier tried to put 6.5 million tugrug on my Mongolian bankcard, and my card said, "Nope!"  So I had them run 3, successfully, and then they tried to do another 3.  And of course that didn't work.  Well, fortunately the day before I'd dropped the last $700 of my fall bonuses into my US dollar account, so I had them put 2.5 mil on that card, but that left me with one million left to pay.  I was able to pay the rest of it by using my mobile app and just skipping the card entirely, but I feel like this is a flaw in Mongolia's banking system.  If you are paying a hospital and you have enough money in the account, the charge should just fucking go through.

So that was it.  This is Day 6.  I finally started to get some rest on Day 2 (back in my own bed cuddled up with my dakimakura).  Gradually regained my appetite by Day 3.  Stopped freaking out about constipation on Day 4.  I've left the apartment today and the previous 2, and feel like I'll be okay at work tomorrow (it's the day I only teach 2 classes anyways).  I'm not totally Over It yet, but I'm getting there.  The first 24 hours or so, I questioned if I'd made the right choice, but compared to the recovery time for myomectomy or hysterectomy, this has been a cakewalk.  All the same, I'd still rather go the rest of my life without visiting a hospital again.  Hopefully this will make it more likely.

*Fact: I never used to take OTC meds because I believed my immune system was Tough Enough.  Then I took a Nyquil once when I couldn't sleep from coughing, and after a full 8 hours of sleeping like a baby I woke feeling fresh as a daisy, and decided that being Tough Enough was bullshit - quick recovery was MUCH better.

**This is somewhat subjective...my cramps have never been that bad.  On the other hand, I feel like I only made it to an 8 on the pain scale at the worst I felt. 

***Fun fact: According to the internet, you're looking at about $10,000 for the same thing in the States.

Death by Hiking

Like I said a few days back, half of the blogs out here in the interwebs about Cappadocia are about hiking.  Now, I like to think I enjoy hiking, but when it actually comes down to it, what I really enjoy is walking along nice, flat trails, through beautiful scenery, while snapping lots of pictures.  I actually know my limits, and have a tendency to lose interest when there's not a shady bench to rest on relatively quickly, at regular intervals.

Engrish, on the other hand, lives for this shit.  Hell, she probably would have run through all the valleys if I hadn't been slowing her down.  I was happy for her to get some hikes in while we were on vacation, really I was!  And when she read about Baglidere - the so-called Love Valley - she knew she'd be able to drag me out on at least one hike.

Our final day in Cappadocia dawned crisp and clear.  That morning I took a break from my webnovel long enough to go to the bathroom, and when I realized it was light out, wondered if the balloons would have already passed.  I opened the door to our cave, and there they were, floating in the bright morning sunlight (which I was not actually happy to see...I had forgotten to bring sunscreen AND a hat, and none of the umbrellas I saw during the snowstorm were opaque - more on that later).  We went up to the rooftop to watch them for a bit - wondering if there wasn't much wind, since it looked like they were coming down in town, whereas we made it much further south - and then got ready for breakfast, while I tried to figure out if there was a shortcut to get from Goreme into Love Valley.  If there was, I couldn't find it.  However, I did stumble across an app that had incredibly detailed hiking trails - AllTrails - and this got us out of town and down to the trail head, with some pretty spectacular views along the way.

Sadly, the GPS tracking on it wasn't the best.  It got fixated on one street corner in Goreme, so I was guessing how far we'd gotten by how many "trails" we'd passed for most of the walk to the trail head.  It caught up to us for a short time before finally deciding we were irredeemably lost.  Fortunately, once you're in the valley, it's pretty obvious which way you're supposed to go.

As we moved into the valley, we both noticed a distinct lack of benches.  There also wasn't much shade.  It wasn't too hot, though, and while the trail wasn't flat, it wasn't too strenuous either.  At least at first.  And it didn't take long before we got to the main attraction...the...err......heavenly pillars.

If, a few moments ago, you thought to yourself, "Huh, she didn't explain why Engrish was so sure she'd be willing to go on this hike," well, I believe it should be obvious now.  Why is Baglidere known as Love Valley?  Because the fairy chimneys in this valley have been weathered into rather phallic shapes - like, shall we say, love plungers???  

Wondering what time it is?  Time for me to make as many penis jokes as I can come up with - in other words, it's dicks o'cock!

Have you heard about the phallic formations in Love Valley before now?  They're as expected...rock hard.  That said, it just seems like a waste to me that they didn't carve these in the valley with the red stone.*  

I do have a bone(r) to pick with Engrish though.  This hike was like a giant stone dick - hard and way too long!  (If your hike lasts more than four hours, please call a doctor.)  However, I would have felt bad if I'd cock blocked Engrish.  She made it up to me by loaning me protection.**

(About seven jokes...not bad.)

Seriously, though, I struggled with this hike.  A huge part of it is because I've been a sloth for two years, but on a good day it really shouldn't have posed a problem.  Considering three days before I exhausted myself on the LAST hike and then completed underground maneuvers in Kaymakli, I really should have known better.  My legs were really stiff and sore the day before, but I was convinced that hiking would loosen them up...more the idiot, I.

Thankfully, Engrish has the patience of a saint, reinforced by the fact that I didn't mind if she went off on her own into the hills.  No matter how much I whined, she never lost her cool, no matter how slow I went or how many times I stopped, she was chill, which is amazing because I'm pretty sure I was a huge pain in the ass (much like a huge stone...nevermind, I think I'm done).  Meanwhile, when I found this cool and shady spot, I very nearly gave up and carved out my own cave home - that little trickle of water had already done most of the work for me.  The fact that there was actually nothing to eat anywhere nearby, though, provided enough motivation for me to keep moving my feet.

That said, I just want to state that this hike is a lot longer than people make it out to be.  If you hike from Goreme to Uchisar it's 3.8 kilometers, and supposedly the hike from Love Valley to Uchisar is 4.4 kilometers.  The catch, though, is that you have to hike a ways north of Goreme to get to the trail head - a whole 4.7 kilometers.  And in case you're wondering why we were trying to get to Uchisar, it's a natural fortification that was used to watch over the surrounding valleys.  Unfortunately I can't tell you anything else about it because by the time we finally got there I had given up, choosing to sit on the big leather couch in the cafe we went to get Engrish coffee from.  Maybe if some enterprising soul had set up a restaurant right where we came out of the valley - or hell, was just selling water - I could have rallied, but no.  We had to keep going from there, and even after another 20 minutes of walking we hadn't hit a restaurant.  Eventually a man at the roadside souvenir stall offered to drive us into Uchisar, but by then my spirit was crushed.  After Engrish had a look around the town we cabbed it back to Goreme, killing time drinking coke and beer before dinner at a place called Soffy's Kitchen.  What was for dinner?  Eggplant, of course***

*In case you are gullible - the shape of the fairy chimneys is due to erosion NOT carving.  There IS a valley made out of red stone, though the red stone is apparently harder and doesn't erode OR carve as easily.

**I stole her hat about halfway through.  I'm a redhead, 'nuff said.  

***PSYCH - I definitely wasn't done, I mean, it would have been a crime if I hadn't fit an eggplant joke in somewhere.

Cooking With Gas

I beg you not to judge Engrish and me.  Yes, during our time in Turkey we ate with the enthusiasm of a Mormon singles' ward at a break-the-fast potluck.  Or a Muslim at Iftar.  Or, if those metaphors hold no meaning for you, we were a two-girl horde of locusts, devouring everything in sight.  Because here's the thing about Mongolia in 2022: we're between a rock and a hard place.  China's closed their borders.  Russia's off playing king of the mountain.  Meanwhile, we can't just go to the store and buy things.  Admittedly, when I first came to Mongolia ten years ago, the rule of thumb was to buy rare items when you found them, because there was no guarantee they'd be there when you came back.  However, it was never to this extent.  Back then, we were talking about cherry coke...now I'm lucky if I can buy a can of coke.  I haven't seen flour tortillas in probably six months.  Hell, Korean food was one of the things I could always count on, but these days I can't even seem to find sesame oil.

So that's the situation.  For an entire, glorious week, nobody told us "bahkwei."  (I knew I was well and truly back last weekend when I tried to go to LaRosa for dinner and left without eating because they didn't have anything I wanted...and I tried to order three different things!)  Instead, each dish was more delectable than the last.  However, no meal we ate the entire trip was as tasty as the one we cooked ourselves.

Okay, let me back up.  After returning to Hidden Cave from our balloon ride, we chilled a bit before being picked up again, this time by Tolga, who whisked us off to his family home in Ayvali.  Their family business is a restaurant called Cappadocia Home Cooking.  And they very kindly let you be the chef!  Sure, they did most of the hardest parts of cooking, like grocery shopping and washing the dishes, but still.  You know me - I'm kind of addicted to this sort of thing.  But I feel like I should get some points for getting Engrish hooked on it, too - not only did she buy the family cookbook, but when we got back to Istanbul, she stopped us at a shop along the street to pick up a Turkish rolling pin.  Now that's dedication!

When we got to their home, they treated us to tea and these amazing little...heaven help me, I'm going to sound like a pretentious British git...biscuits (sorry, there's really no better name for them - cookies just isn't accurate), dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon.  After chatting with us they brought us to the kitchen, which was huge and made of stone - like a barrel vault?  I actually know pretty much nothing about Turkish architecture.  There were plenty of jars of canned, home-grown produce - they actually own these huge apricot orchards.  It felt really inviting - they told us, "Our home is your home!" (I'm not that easy to fool, guys - if this was my home it would be a huge mess - but thanks for playing!)

Over the course of two hours they showed us how to make SO many dishes.  As we cooked they let us in on a lot of little secrets, like not adding the garlic til last (otherwise it overtakes the other flavors while cooking) or peeling the eggplant in stripes (although I can't remember the reason for that one).  By the way, I just want you to recognize the restraint I'm showing in holding off on eggplant jokes, in spite of how often Engrish ordered it on this trip.  Probably because I need those jokes for tomorrow's post, but I digress.

The dish I was most interested to learn was the so-called Turkish ravioli.  It was amazingly simple to make, WAY easier than Italian ravioli.  I'd actually eaten it the night before at Seten, but it was just okay.  It was served warm, rather than hot, and the sauce just didn't wow me.  Well, Tolga explained that dishes that are served with yogurt - Turkish ravioli, for example - have to be cooled off before you put it on, or else you end up with a big, runny mess.  As far as I could tell, though there was no excuse for the sauce - Cappadocia Home Cooking tossed theirs in butter with some paprika and...maybe some parsley?  Something delicious.

When we finished our chores, they brought us back into the dining room where a host of dishes was already laid on the table, including the tastiest vine leaves of the whole trip.  We were both a little worried that they'd want us to eat everything...we'd had to finish the biscuits earlier, although they were so tasty that I, at least, wasn't complaining...but they didn't, and somehow we managed to make it all the way through dessert.  It was scrumptious, but I could hardly move when it was all over!  I doubted we were going to need our dinner reservation that night, after all.

That trip 14 years back was the first time I went to a cooking class, at Petra Kitchen in Jordan.  Since then, I've learned to cook Nepalese, Chinese, Thai, Italian, Indian...not to mention all the dishes taught to me by my OG masterchef, Bronte.  Over the years learning to cook has become one of my most favorite traveling activities.  There's something about food that is so fundamental to who a people are.  There's something about cooking together that draws people together.  Oh, and there's the fact that my family is a little more understanding of my rock-and-roll lifestyle when I come back ready to cook tasty meals for them.  

Any Way the Wind Blows

One of the greatest atrocities the human race has ever perpetuated against itself is its insistence on sunrise.  Don't get me wrong - there is something unmistakably stunning about watching the gathering brightness burst over the horizon.  But as far as I'm concerned, you get the same light show at sunset, without the hard morning rollout.

Our third day in Turkey started at 4 in the bloody morning.  It's a good thing Engrish and I were both jetlagged, because getting up that early when you're on vacation should basically be a travel crime.  And I say that in spite of the fact that I hate tourists so much that I regularly wake up early to avoid them.  It's just that early is bordering on obscene.  4 am is just past the "easier to stay up all night than to get up early" mark.  But I digress.

The reason we were up at oh-dark-hundred was to go hot air ballooning, which apparently is rare at sunset (probably having something to do with the wind), or apparently any other time of the day (probably because no one wants to pay out the ass unless the sun is doing something romantic).  We sat, bleary eyed in the office of Hidden Cave waiting for the white van of destiny to stop at our door - one of a seemingly endless convoy shuttling tourists out of Goreme to the north, where the balloons were raising their heads about as sleepily as we were.  

Once we got there, snacks were passed out, and it wasn't long before we were shephered into the basket - there ended up being 28 of us, but Engrish and I weren't complaining because we at least got IN the basket; undoubtedly there were some people who missed their shot thanks to the previous day's snow.  The skies were finally lightening when the balloon was fully inflated, as the guys from Discovery Balloons finally gave up their wrestling match against the power of fire and released us up into the air.

Engrish didn't take much convincing to decide that even if it was expensive we really had to have this "once in a lifetime experience."  Or...you know...twice, for some of us.  Even though I'd been before, Luxor really couldn't compare to this trip - for starters, nobody seemed to have livestock on their roof.  There were also so many more balloons in the air that no matter which direction we faced there were beautiful shots to be taken (did I take over 200 photos in less than an hour?  You bet your ass I did).

One of the things about traveling to Cappadocia is that, like, 50% of the blog posts never shut up about how fucking romantic it is (the remaining 50% only talk about hiking...it's a very select market going there, apparently).  Not only was our basket - including the other two people in each of our compartments - full of lovey-dovey couples, it was also hard as hell for Engrish to find us a hotel with two separate beds.  Far, faaar too many of the cozy little cave hotels also had rooms with the bathtub in the room with the beds.  Which I guess is nice if that's what you came there for, but the two of us had a couple of good laughs about how very UNromantic our vacation was.

Anyways, if you're not aware (and why would you be, since I didn't mention it when I did this fourteen years ago?), balloon pilots can only control the altitude of the balloon.  That is, they can make it go up or down, but that's it.  Okay, actually, I think they can get it to turn, too, but otherwise they can't impact the direction it's going - that is, where they actually end up depends on where the wind blows.  This was pretty funny when the hour was almost up and we could see the convoy of white vans chasing us across the countryside.  I'm guessing that they at least have some idea of where they might end up, and probably choose their starting point so that you fly over something interesting, but ultimately it's undoubtedly more art than science.

Our flight went over "Love Valley," which you will be hearing more about another day.  You will also be hearing about that turd-shaped rock formation, sitting on the horizon like a pile of shit, and the endless trek we went on to get there...to tide you over til then, just know it would have taken Engrish a LOT less time on her own...

By the way, remember how we had snow the day before?  Well, on one hand, getting to see the frosty landscape all decked out in white was pretty sweet, not gonna lie.  But...

Do you have any idea how cold it gets up in the sky?  On a normal day?  Well, I don't, but I'm pretty fucking sure it's not THIS cold.  Every time the pilot pulled the cord to make the fire blast, I held my hands up to thaw them out.  Somehow* the rest of me was fine, but since I pretty much didn't stop taking pictures the whole time, my fingers were constantly being exposed.  I can still feel the freeze.

I mean, I don't regret it for a heartbeat.  But if any of the many, MANY shops we'd stopped in the day before had any sense, they would have been pushing the hand-crocheted mittens HARD.  I probably still wouldn't have bought any - if you haven't caught on yet, I DO have the "I'm from Mongolia, this isn't cold!!!" attitude - but I would have been kicking myself for it, and that might have brought them some satisfaction for all the things I DIDN'T buy from them.

Another thing someone should be selling around there?  Some sort of harness for your phone so that you don't drop it.  I had my Big Gun's strap wrapped around my arm several times, and I was still sweating.  We went low over the open air museum, and I told Engrish that if you were going to drop your phone, that was probably the time to do it - it might have actually survived the fall.

Well, all good things come to an end - the sun rose, we passed valleys and rock formations and ended up somewhere south of Nevsehir before our pilot took us down in a perfect landing.  And can I say, humd'Allah for Muslims?  I forgot, after many, many years out of the Middle East, how nice it is when someone expects - and plans for - people who won't drink.  Our "champagne toast" after the flight was prepared with juice, which I appreciated.  Especially since, from Engrish's sassy reaction to the Americans chatting up the pilot in front of us on the way back, the champagne didn't do anything to blunt their idiocy.

*Never let anyone tell you that blubber doesn't have its advantages!