A lot of the time, I feel a bit like a Japanese student who happens to work at a hospital. Everyday I spend a lot of the time at work just talking to the auxilliary nurses I work 
with, and when I can with the nurses. Me and Rhys both make a lot of effort to speak the language, I think as a result people at work like teaching us new stuff. I always carry a notebook around to scribble down new words, and since I’m in a hospital I learn everything from medical terms like 外科 (surgery) and 十二指腸 (duodenum), the noises animals make – cats don’t go “meow” here apparently, but “nyao”, and Nagoya slang.
The last week, however, has been a bit different. On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to watch endoscopy and colonoscopy investigations for about 2 hours, which was very interesting – especially as the doctors can speak some english and so can explain what they’re actually doing. Apparently the Japanese endoscopy equipment is so ahead of its competition that it is used all over the world, including England. Not only that, but some of the most cutting edge surgery is being performed here by Japanese doctors. Next week, I’ve been invited to watch ESD, a very new endoscopic operation, which I’m pretty excited about (日本語で “waku waku”).
That’s not all, however. Wednesday was my final day on the gastroenterology ward, which was a bit of a shame as I’ve made some good friends in my 6 weeks working there. Nevertheless, in the morning my head nurse told me I had to give a speech in the afternoon to all of the nurses there, which given my basic Japanese I was a bit nervous about! It went pretty well though, and very generously they gave me a bag with some gifts, including some pretty fancy chopsticks and some suspicious looking food I’m looking forward to eating.
Jyaa, on Thursday morning I started work on my second ward, 外科 – surgery. It’s probably the newest ward in the hospital, so it’s extremely clean and everything seems more modern than my previous ward. In addition, I was getting a little tired of doing the same stuff all the time in gastroenterology, so it’s good that work is a little different now. My jobs now also involve cleaning surgical equipment and preparing beds for surgery, and best of all I don’t seem to do much towel maki maki at all! Rhys has gone up to gastroenterology for his second ward so his experiences are probably opposite to mine.
Not only are the jobs a bit more interesting, I was able to follow the doctors on the ward round on Thursday morning which was very interesting, although I found out that this was just a one-off to introduce me to the ward and not something I’d be able to do regularly unfortunately. However, there is still lots of fun things to do. Most of the nurses speak no english, yet we had a patient who spoke English but no Japanese. I had to translate the word “oshikko” for one of the nurses. I didn’t know the word, so I wrote it in my dictionary and it said ‘piddle’. It seems so innappropriate to ask an adult if they’ve “had a piddle”!
My new ward also seems to be very welcoming, as on Friday night we were invited out with them to a Taiwanese restaurant for one of the nurses’ leaving do. After sitting around eating extremely spicy food and drinking plenty of beer, talking to a few of the nurses from my new ward, we got a taxi back with some of the doctors and went home. I got plenty of sleep because I knew the following night would be a long one. This is why:
I think it was the first time we went to Soda Pop that we were told about the Halloween party at the end of October, but nevertheless we left buying our costumes until yesterday morning. We met with Megumi outside Baskin Robbins in Oasis 21 for the second week in a row.
The Saturday before, there was a bit of confusion because we thought it was Haagen Dasz rather than Baskin Robbins, which we were beginning to worry had totally screwed up our plans, but it worked out and we met with Megumi and Natsuki (from now on Mechan and Natchan) to go eating, drinking and singing. Yeah, karaoke. Rhys and I both knew we couldn’t do it sober so we all went to an Izakaya first for some delicious Japanese food and Asahi beer. You wouldn’t expect it from their small figures, but Mechan and Natchan were knocking their beers back too! 
Somebody kindly offered to take our picture as they could see we were struggling to set up the timer without the camera falling over, but then we kind of rudely got them to take another picture, and another, from three different cameras. The Izakaya was pretty fun, as while we were eating I taught Mechan some rudimentary foreign language skills. She can now sing ‘Rule Brittania’, say “ich heisse Megumi!” and understands some basic French: “voulez vous coushe avec moi…”
Next we went to BIG ECHO, a karaoke place in Sakae for a couple of hours. My Japanese is getting a bit better, so I could read all of the words in Linda Linda – we also sang Shanghai Honey, 気分上上, and Yesterday. Whilst knocking back some Shochu. It was good!
Anyway, more of the present. After meeting Mechan yesterday morning, she took us to a place called Loft in Sakae where we got kitted out with some Halloween costumes.
After considering various things like going as nuns or witches, I settled with a pirate costume and Rhys an escaped prisoner. We went to eat some food at a restaurant which specialised in Osaka cuisine. I can’t remember the name of the dish but it was a bit like a pancake according to Mechan, and was pretty fun because it was do-it-yourself.
Afterwards we went back home to cram some Japanese before the party. I was a bit down because in Sakae I’d attempted to buy tickets for my favourite Japanese band, Sambomaster, who were playing in Tokyo at the end of November. However, it turned out Lawson only got about 30 tickets and they’d already sold out. The phoneline was jammed too so I couldn’t get through. However, back in Yagoto I put Sambomaster in the Lawson machine just to double check, and to my absoulute surprise noticed the kanji for Nagoya, 名古屋! Tickets went on sale last month and amazingly were still available, so this coming Tuesday I’m going to see them in Nagoya – waku waku!!
That makes it the second gig in as many weeks, as last Tuesday Rhys and I went to Club Quattro in Sakae to see one of his favourite bands from England, The Cribs. It was great fun, and they played all of their singles like ‘I’m Alright Me’ and ‘Girls Like Mystery’, so I really enjoyed it. We met some English speaking Japanese people our age also, and we’re going to meet up with them sometime soon. It’s nice to have some friends who aren’t 10 years our senior!
Getting back to the Halloween party… we got changed and at about 9pm last night we set off to Soda Pop, which is about a 15 minute walk. It’s not far, but a little strange when one of you looks like an escaped convict and you’re a barefoot pirate! Despite this, and despite trying to make eye contact with everyone I passed, we didn’t seem to get a single strange look. I suppose in this country, it takes a lot to surprise somebody.
We got to Soda Pop and the place was as full as we’ve ever seen it. We’re used to ten people or less being there usually and that’s including us and the staff. 
I reckon last night there was upto a hundred people there. The entrance fee was a little steep at 3500￥, but after finding out the beer was free we made some pretty regular trips to the bar.
There was an American band playing which was pretty cool, so we got talking to them, as well as the many maids, schoolgirls, animals and witches enjoying the party. Funnily there was a Japanese guy who’d bought exactly the same costume as Rhys. The band were playing some recognisable songs like ‘Celebrate Good Times’ and ‘Cocaine’, in which the two guitarists had a bit of a wankfest for a few minutes trying to show off. It was pretty cool, though.
We hung around until about 2am and wandered back, stopping at Lawson on the way for some supplies. All in all, an awesome time was had! It was all a bit too much for one guy who as we left was lying horizontally by the bar.
