Author Archives: Marjorie

my (first) seitai experience

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I’m used to carrying my luggages in all my travels back when I was still single; heaving almost 40kg luggages down three flights of stairs. Having had lived alone in Manila, I was independent in that kind of thing. Having had the experience, I insisted yesterday morning that I carry my ~10kg luggage down the station stairs because I was really guilty that Atsushi carry my luggage as well since his luggage was already heavy.

I must have had the wrong bending or something in the two minutes that Atsushi allowed me to carry my luggage because come evening, my lower back sent a searing, racking pain that rendered me impossible to walk. With every movement comes a pain so incredible I was thinking my back must be breaking. 🙁

I was thinking of the work that was waiting for me and how I need to finish some outputs before the HAZOP sessions so I was really looking forward to today’s first day at work. But shoganai, I have to be absent from work as I can’t walk straight, much less not utter a cry of pain with every step.

Come 6pm, 24 hours after the first shot of pain, I was able to walk myself to the seitai place (Japanese physical therapy place), albeit slowly and looking like a duck waddling.

Hubs who has to be in the office called the seitai place in advance and instructed them of my condition and history so by the time I showed up, they ushered me immediately to the therapy bed.

I was able to sleep comfortably last night thanks to the kairo or the heating pad. What the therapist did though was put an ice pack on my back. Four spots were treated to some sort of electric massage – he tested my hand before he put the pads on my back and when he turned on the current, I felt the shock of the electric current.

After ten minutes or so of the ice pack and the electric current pads (which was scary I tell you), the therapist then proceeded to massaging my lower back. He must have realised the pain I was in while he was massaging my lower back in that his face showed the concern. And with the little Japanese I know, I understood what he said to the other therapist who put the ice pack on me – that I was in an intense pain. He tenderly told me “yukuri” or slowly, as he instructed me to change positions in the therapy bed. As he was prepping my back for the therapeutic massage, the preps massage reminded me of the massages mama used to give me when I was little. With the tears of pain, along came the tears of missing mama.

After the massage, they taped something on my back to help reduce the pain. And then they put this on me which I’ll be wearing for the next 3 days at least.

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Yep, that’s my tummy in there.

I was planning to work overtime tomorrow to make up for the work I missed today. But apparently I can’t since I have to go back to seitai for follow up therapy.

Being only 31, having
this kind of discomfort certainly is embarrassing.

Anyways, take care of your body guys. Remember, health is wealth. 🙂
——-
One of my bosses/colleague commented in Facebook that I may have what in Japanese is known as gikkuri goshi. I researched a bit about this and found that you could have this either by lifting heavy things, lack of exercise, and had kept your body cold. I was guilty of all three things: lifted something heavy, NO exercise, and that it’s been days since I immersed my body in the bath tub and that we travelled the whole night – on a wintry night – in a bus.
On top of loosing weight, there’s another reason alright to enrol in a hot yoga class.
——
I said I walk like a duck waddling. Hubs said I walk like a penguin. Well, at least a penguin’s cuter. 😛

Oh. One thing to be thankful for. Despite being bedridden, it has been a productive day indeed. 🙂 🙂

honesty and the Japanese

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The first time we got assigned here in Japan nine years back, we were so amazed at how honest the japanese are. Some examples: when you choose to buy an item and the sales person knows that that particular item has a defect, they’d point out the defect and ask you if you’re ok to buy the product considering the defect. When you left behind an item on your seat in the train station, you’re sure to find your stuff either in the same exact location where you left your stuff or in the Lost and Found section.

Even in the office, the honesty system prevails. We don’t have a time card or anything of the sort where we log our time in and our time outs. Our bosses approve our time sheets with the trust that the number of working hours we’ve inputted, including our overtimes, are really the hours that we have rendered our work. With a policy as trustful as that, the person that would beef up his/her work hours on paper even when they’ve actually worked less hours is probably a very untrustworthy person through and through.

I was again reminded of the honesty system in this country when we (me together with Atsushi and family) dropped by Osaki no Hana on our way to Yoshima.
Whilst enjoying the view,

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one of us noticed these mandarins, or mikan as they are known in Japanese, for sale.

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But no one was around looking out for the sale of their produce. There was however a note to just drop the payment on this bamboo pole.20120104-220540.jpg

 

Thrilled with the concept, one of us dropped 200yen into the bamboo pole and took one pack. We tasted the oranges right there and then and was so surprised to learn how sweet and juicy the oranges were. I’m not an orange fan as I usually find them sour and difficult to peel. But this one wasn’t just very sweet and juicy, the skin was so thin it’s so easy to peel. We ended up buying five packs (or was it six?). ~big grin~
Grandparents enjoyed its juiciness and sweetness as well when we got home.

Now if only we’d see more of this honesty system, it’d probably be a better world (and a more efficient one at that).

cholesterol talk

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Want to lower down your cholesterol level? Here’s one drink to help you with your feat. Soybean milk otherwise known in Japanese as tonyu.

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Those red characters on the left actually advertises that this drink can help lower down cholesterol level.
Before we left Yokohama last week, hubs has started to try and lower down his cholesterol level. He has been drinking tonyu almost everyday this week. Let’s see his cholesterol level on his next medical check come end of the month.

Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu!

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It’s an overcast day; clouds big and heavy and low; seemed like they’re brimming with water vapour and about to shower what it has been keeping anytime now. But I smile as I look at them clouds. Because it’s like the year is brimming of promise, full of blessings.

The December count-thy-blessings blogging surely was fun (35 posts! And to think there were still a number of blessings received that we just kept private!); reminding us again that there sure are many blessings that He showers as every day, so long as we just acknowledge it and not focus on the negative side.

And so here’s to another year of counting the blessings He’s given us (note of the past tense, because He already has it in store for us; it’s just a matter of us being willing to receive it and count it as a blessing).

But just as we are getting ready for the goodness that is in store for us, let us also, even in our own little way, be a blessing to others as well in that even when we may not directly affect the entire world and make this a better world, at least by touching lives and being a blessing ourselves, we somehow create a ripple of goodness.

Happy New Year everyone!! 🙂