I hadn’t been feeling well for the last few days, so I decided that a visit to the doctor would be a good idea. Conveniently there is a clinic just 2 minutes walk from the ryokan, so I called in and registered. I wasn’t sure if my Japanese language ability would be sufficient for the task, but 90% of the conversation was simple enough as it concerned:
- pain
- Doctors will continue to poke your tummy harder until it hurts. I suspect that they are trying to check both that light pressure doesn’t hurt, and that intense presure does actually produce the correct feeling of pain.
- colour
- Dark brown poo is good, especially if it floats. Other colours of poo are bad.
- food
- The doctor laughed loudly when I mentioned I had eaten an ekiben (a lunchbox sold in trains). This seemed to be the most important factor in my diagnosis.
The final 10% of the conversation contained an explanation of the 3 different drugs that he was prescribing.