Hospital Hijinks & Extreme Jetlaggery

The night before, my mom asked me to set an alarm for 9:00, since we were going to sleep around 2:30 and figured that would be plenty of time. Mom woke up at 8, though, and essentially woke me up, too. At the time I felt refreshed and awake.

I told my mother that I wanted to have bread and milk in Japan because my childhood memories told me that they were delicious. The previous night, Suzukoobachan bought some at the store, and she suggested that I have toast for breakfast since she had butter, jam, and peanut butter. I agreed, and she made the toast in an interesting way. She says that she hates the way bread tastes from a toaster (which is in the microwave, of all places), so she put a little water into a broiler pan and out the bread into the broiler. Two minutes and a flip later, I had toast!

I was not at all disappointed by the bread and milk. The bread, although it was toasted, tasted exactly how I remembered it-- thick, soft, and slightly chewy with a sweet taste. The butter was smooth and delicious, and the strawberry honey jam also tasted nice. What I loved, though, was the peanut butter. I normally buy natural, unsweetened peanut butter because I dislike the regular peanut butters that add tons of sugar and despite that still don't taste sweet. This stuff, though, was delicious. Very sweet, but in a mild way-- not harsh or sugary. All that with two glasses of milk and I was just happy as could be.

We drove to the hospital to pick up Obaachan. Suzukoobachan parked the car in the front of the hospital and ran in to get her while my mom and I waited-- and we found out that we were parked in front of the ER because not even 2 minutes after my aunt ducked into the building an ambulance came up, lights flashing and sirens blaring, and we were blocking its way. Panic set in, and my mom told me to move the car. I panicked, as well, so when I put it into drive, stepped on the gas and found it didn't move, I told her that I must be doing something wrong. All the while, the ambulance ended up parking on the street and wheeling in an obaasan lady on a stretcher into the ER. I guess we were super lucky that this is Japan because nobody got mad or anything; they did their jobs, asked us to please try to move the car if we could, and that was that. It turns out that I wasn't applying enough force to the accelerator the first time-- I was sort of gingerly tapping it because we were parked less than five feet away from the ER doors I figured it'd be bad form to plow my aunt's car through the hospital on my first day in Japan. If this had been the US I have a feeling that some fines or even jail time would have resulted.

A minute after the hubbub ended, Suzukoobachan appeared with my very tiny Obaachan on her arm.

Obaachan and Hitoshiojichan's apartment has changed so little from what I remember 18 years ago. It's really spooky. The only difference is that Obaachan is not able to move around too much on her own, so she has to sit most of the time. She is as stubborn as my mother, though-- when she wants to get up and go to the bathroom or the kitchen, she refuses our help when we rush to steady her arm or open doors for her. "Daijoubu, daijoubu!" she insists as she shuffles around.

She is so very old and obviously frail, but she is still talkative and energetic. She has a tiny old lady voice and small, graying eyes that sparkle when she laughs. When she is emphatic about a point she squeezes her eyes shut and nods her head sharply, the inflection in her voice confirming its importance. Her tiny hands, while weakened with age and arthritis, are still fairly deft, although she does spill a little tea when she pours it.

When we arrived at Hitoshiojichan's house (who wasn't home at the time), my mom and Suzukoobachan left almost immediately to grab some lunch. I was left alone with Obaachan, so I took the opportunity to show her some photographs I brought along with me from high school. My Japanese is pretty broken, so I was limited to saying things like "This is my Hawaiian friend" or "Annie-- middle school." I had some photos with sticky notes on the back from a Japanese presentation I did when I was in college, and Obaachan told me that my Japanese handwriting was very good (she did not comment whether or not she understood what I was aiming to say, though, haha).

Lunch was good. Mom and Suzukoobachan bought supermarket sushi and osekihan-- mochi rice with azuki beans, which is made as a festive dish on special occasions. Suzukoobachan ducked out after lunch to run some errands. The next few hours were a little boring for me because mom and Obaachan chatted the whole time and I was left with little to do than watch TV. Hitoshiojichan returned after a little while and brought out old photographs from the last time we visited.


Suzukoobachan picked Mom and me up around 5 and we went back to her house. I was very tired, so I passed out on the study floor. Every 15 minutes or so someone would come in, turn on the light, and ask if I was doing okay. It was sort of annoying because all I wanted to do was take a nap without interruptions, but word did not spread around that that was my intention. At 6:30 we went to a fairly upscale Chinese restaurant in a nice hotel for dinner. The prices were rather steep for the food they served, but at least it tasted alright.

I feel so dehydrated here. In America I'm used to drinking at least a glass or two of water with every meal. Here, they only serve tiny cups of tea and, in the rare occasion that they do serve water, it is in equally tiny glasses. This has probably made my jetlag even worse than it would be normally; after my shower I am going to crash.