An interesting surgery and some interesting sights of the past few weeks, part 1.

Just a quick warning.. this is going to be a long blog!!
So i haven't quite managed to update my blog in a few weeks and i have been rather busy so im not quite sure where to start. I will probably split the last few weeks adventures into two blogs, to make it easier to write and read! The heat in Nagasaki recently has been unreal, sometimes it is just wayy to hot to be outside and there is still a lack of air conditioning in the wards so work is a struggle sometimes. However i only have two more weeks left working in the hospital as this coming week is when i shall be working at summer camp in Hokkaido. I cannot believe how fast it has went. Its crazyy! Although i am looking forward to having some free time in Nagasaki before i leave and also excited for my trips to Kagoshima and Tokyo before flying home.

A few weeks back we watched another surgery, this time it was a hysterectomy which was a rather strange one to see. The entire womb was removed alongside one of the ovaries. We only caught the last part of the operation as it was a long procedure. Afterwards one of the doctors called us over to put gloves on and let us touch what had been removed. I must admit it was extremely strange and i want be doing anything like that again in a hurry! Since then we have watched another lung surgery but unfortunately i had no idea what was going on in that one. Sometimes i have no idea how they know what they are doing, it all looks the same on the screen and they just seem to hack away wherever they feel like it! 

A couple sundays ago i decided that i was going to take myself a walk down by the station and see if i could find anything interesting. I wandered along some backstreets which were rather interesting and eventually came across the entrance to the Memorial to the Martyrdom of the 26 Saints of Japan. In the 1500's a mixture of 26 Japanese and Western people were executed for preaching about Christianity. I do not know too much about the background to this other than in the late 1500's Christianity was banned in Japan and those who preached it were rounded up from various cities in Japan and were executed in Japan.

After I had visited the site of the 26 martyrs I followed some signs for the Fukusai Temple which I had previously caught a glimpse of from our Ikebana teachers apartment . The shrine is shape like a turtle with a woman standing on its back. It is rather huge and interesting to look at and it had a small beautiful garden but i didn’t spend much time at the temple there wasn’t a lot to see inside. Afterwards I decided to go a trek up the hill which was a lot more work than I first thought. It was about 30degrees and I had silly flip flop sandals on which are not ideal for climbing up steep hills! However I trekked on through a graveyard and I was rewarded with a beautiful view of down town Nagasaki. I am definitely going to miss the beautiful mountainous backdrop of Nagasaki when I return to Dumfries.

The following week we travelled to Tokyo on the Friday for a meeting with the red cross about the summer camp we are volunteering at. It was a shame to only be in Tokyo for the day but it was great seeing some of the other volunteers and hearing about their placements. We also found a lot out about the summer camp. There are three main islands of Japan, Kyushu ( the southern one where Nagasaki is), Honshuu  where Tokyo,  Kyoto etc are and then the most northern one, Hokkaido where summer camp is. It is set in a ski resort called Rusutsu Resort and it looks gorgeous in winter however I don’t think there will be any snow at this time of year. I am looking forward to some cooler weather! The summer camp is for children from the Fukushima, Iwate and Miyagi regions which were deeply affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The children who will be visiting the summer camp may have lost family, their homes, moved schools, living in temporary fabricated housing and can no longer play outside often due to radiation problems.. The summer camp gives them a chance to release some stress with children who are in the same position as them. It gives them a chance to have fun in an area where they do not have to worry. I leave for Hokkaido on Sunday 21^st, first flying to Tokyo from Nagasaki very early in the morning then from Tokyo to Sapporo and catching a bus to the resort. I will be there for 4 nights and 5 days and im super excited. Once I return I will write a blog all about it.

Bowling, Swimming and Onsen

Last Friday we were invited to bowling by our mentor Oka-san. I was thinking it was just going to be Lucy and I with her until we discovered there was 150 people from the hospital going and we had to hand out the prizes! When we arrived we were given a bento box and a bottle of green tea- yum... The bento box was mainly fish and other strange looking things so i didnt eat much of that and the green tea was changed for a bottle of coke. I just cant get used to drinking it , especially cold. I was put in a team with two people i had never met before and three children. One of them was constantly climbing all over me as well. Unfortunately i suck at bowling but i did win a prize but possibly for the worst score. There was a also a man who was the spitting image of Robert Downey Jr! Overall it was a good night and was a change from sitting in and eating!

On the saturday we went to the outdoor pool across from our apartment to cool down. It was mainly filled with children but it was so good to relax and escape from the heat. At night we headed to the cinema to watch The Great Gatsby which was amazing! I was really excited to see it after reading the book in 6th year for my English exam. It was so glamorous and amazing!

This weekend Nagasaki had a weather warning for a typhoon which was due to hit Saturday morning so we were expecting to be stuck indoors all weekend. So on Friday night after work we headed up to the onsen, Fukunoyu on Mt Inasa to treat ourselves. We mainly went for the buffet which is amazing and we filled ourselves with every fried food you could imagine. After we couldnt eat anymore of that we stuffed our faces with ice cream and cakes covered in white and milk chocolate from the fountain. It was soo amazing, we literally ate till we could no longer move. Then we headed into the onsen to relax and got home around midnight.


I was fully prepared to spend the whole of Saturday in bed watching movies listening to the storm outside however when i woke Saturday morning the weather was perfectly fine and i couldn't deal with wasting it in bed. I decided to head to the shopping mall just for a wander around and ended up buying myself a dress, woops. Later that night Lucy and i headed over to Hamanomachi which is the covered shopping arcade and i bought myself another top. We found an irish cafe/bar where we had a couple cocktails and i finally had macaroni. It wasnt quite the same as my usual macaroni from The Swan but it was macaroni all the same and to make it even better it was fried! Afterwards we took a wander round Shianbashi and discovered Nagasaki's nightlife which we thought was non existent!

Sunday the rain began to start and so far i have been out to the mall and bought myself two new pairs of shoes, i just cant stop spending! Also i have been to the Italian for lunch.. i like to treat myself! After spending most of the weekend out i had to do all my cleaning and tidying up today boo :( This week i have a home visit with a nurse which i am looking forward to and another operation on friday so i shall write about those both next week!

Ward 5E.

I need to stop leaving it so long to write my blogs because now i have too much to write!
Well i finished up on ward 6E two weeks ago, they were lovely but i was glad to move on. I met a really lovely patient, Matsumoto san, on that ward who i took to the shop sometimes. She told me how she loved Nicholas Cage and that she loved the song Pretty Woman. She spoke a little bit of English and liked to ask questions about the UK as she is scared of flying and has never visited. Whenever i cleaned her room she would put sweets in my pocket, she was cute. There was one nurse on this ward who whenever she seen me just giggled and i have no idea why but she was nice all the same.
Last week i was back on ward 5E which is the first ward i worked on in the hospital as we have now made a full rotation of all the wards. This ward is definately my favourite although it isn't all that busy either. A new healthcare worked started and she didnt know i was a volunteer and thought i just worked there. I cant quite remember her name but she was nice and very shy!. She kept coming up to me and asking for things to do, asking for my permission to do things an most of the time i had absolutely no idea what she was saying to me. I had to explain to her i was a volunteer and that she should ask Shioya san but she still continued to follow me around everywhere. On Monday i will be back on Ward 6W but i will spend my last week in the hospital on 5E which is good.
Whilst i was working in the nursery last week it was really hot so the teachers decided to take the kids outside to play in their paddling pool. We all went out to play with them and i was looking forward to having a chance to cool down until when i dipped my feet in the water to discover it was HOT! 30 degrees outside and they are playing in a hot paddling pool, honestly Japanese people seem to love being hot.

Ward 6E and this weeks activites.

Iam officially half way through my time here in Japan and also probably about 3 stone heavier! For some reason i thought i would come to Japan and magically eat healthily and love vegetables and exercising. Unfortunately none of this has happened, i still love mcdonalds , crisps and chocolate and i still hate vegetables and exercising!  However i am trying some new foods, for instance last night i was ever so adventurous and healthy and instead of pasta and cheese for dinner i ate a chicken salad, followed by an ice cream ooppsss. Ill get there eventually!

 So unfortunately June is rainy season in Nagasaki, it is roughly 27degrees most days but about 85/90% humidity so it is soo hot in the hospital. For some reason there is never any air conditioning on in the patients rooms only in the nurses station so i try hang about in there as much as i can! This ward which i started last week is the only ward i have not yet worked on and everyone is really lovely here. Every ward i have been on so far has a team briefing in the mornings at which point i normally stand and day dream because i have no idea what is going on and it doesnt really include me as i just follow people around who give me jobs. On my first day on 6E, last monday, they began their team briefing in the morning and i went off into my usual day dream, probably thinking about food and next thing i know all the nurses were staring at me and i was pushed into the middle of them all. I had no idea what was going on and for some reason i waved at them all and day hey and at that point the head nurse said ' Good morning...' and then i realised i was supposed to have introduced myself. oops. Unfortunately there isn't much to do on this ward and on more than one occassion i have been told to go and sit in the linen cupboard and learn Japanese. I wouldn't mind this so much if it wasn't like sitting in a sauna!!
The patients on this ward keep trying to speak to me which is nice and some even try in English but  all they really manage is where are you from but it is lovely that they try! Ive had two seperate patients draw me a map of Britain, one knew where Scotland was which was a first! However he thought Glasgow was inbetween Liverpool and Manchester... The other patient could not grasp the concept of Scotland being a separate country from England and kept asking if people in Scotland spoke English. It is rather hard trying to explain when my Japanese isnt very good so in the end i gave up!
On Wednesday we were back at Tai-chi for the first time in two weeks so it was a little bit tough getting back into it, my legs were very sore in the morning. Not quite sure if that was from Tai-chi or my spontaneous jog down by the river which was not a good idea in the heat! After work on Thursday we went off to Ikebana and normally we have some food there. On the past two occassions they have made us chicken as they know it is basically all i like! However this week there was a huge bowl of prawns, mashed potatoes with fish eggs mixed in and various salads and vegetables. This was my worst nightmare, i tried to be polite and try the mash which was not to my taste but when Konaka-san offered the prawns i could not face it! Somehow i dont think i will ever like any kind of food which comes from the sea.

Nursery!!

This week at the nursery i taught the children head, shoulders, knees and toes in English! Although the younger ones couldn't quite get the hang of it the older ones were doing okay and everyone, including the teachers, were up singing and doing the actions. It was a lot of fun. The kids at the nursery just seem to get cuter everytime i go! They are forever climbing all over me, once one kid is sitting on my knees the rest have to be sitting there too and it normally ends up in a fight and someone crying, not cool. The teachers were doing a class photo this week which was a disaster. All the kids were all lined up sat on their chairs, the teachers lined up behind them as one of the teachers set the timer on her camera. As she would run to join everyone the kids would all turn around to see what she was doing so the pictures weren't turning out too great as they weren't facing the camera! Eventually one came up with the idea of throwing one of their teddy's infront of the camera to make them all look, it worked... kind of!

After being served two cups of green tea everytime we go to the nursery i think i am finally getting used to it after three months. I still do not enjoy drinking it but it no longer makes me feel sick,result. When lunchtime comes around the kids eat everything on their plates, they are definately much better eaters than myself! Even the babies who we feed eat everything, fish, vegetables, miso soup, rice they are so good! The Japanese are just so healthy and it is good that the kids are given healthy food from such a young age, unfortunately it is too late for me to change.. i love junk food way to much!! 

This month we were also given the great news that on July 21st we are heading to Hokkaido- the most southern island of Japan to volunteer at a kids summer camp with the red cross. I am super excited, i am not quite sure what it will entail yet but when i do i shall write an update! yay. 

3 Operations

So this month i have been lucky enough to watch three operations all of which were pretty gruesome! The first one we watched was at the start of the month and included a man having a tracheostomy and his entire voice box removed. It was not very pleasant to watch, the surgeon cut a hole where his adams apple was and started prodding around which made me feel slightly queasy. The surgeon told us it was a complicated procedure and they had to ensure they did not damage anything surrounding his voice box. The operation took almost four hours in total with the majority of it being the removal of the voice box which took a long time. Once it was removed they showed us it and pointed out his vocal cords which was interesting but also very sad as the man would no longer be able to speak or breathe without a machine assisting him. 

The second operation we have watched this month was the removal of a cancerous tumour from the lung. The hole they made inbetween the patients ribs was rather huge and everytime the surgeon stuck his fingers or hand inside it made me feel rather sick. There was a further two holes cut in the mans chest area for cameras to be inserted. I really have no idea how the surgeons knew which part to take away because in all honesty all of the lung looked the same but after the had removed the tumour, which was rather big, he cut into it and showed us the tumour. So the tumour was  more visible from the inside rather than the outside of it which looked like the rest of the lung. After the removal of the tumour the surgeon poured pints of water into the large hole in the mans chest which i assume was to clean the lung and to get rid of excess blood as afterwards they used a suction tool to remove it all. We did not see the end of this operation as we were whisked off to watch another. 

I have honestly no idea what was going on in the third operation, it had something to do with the large intestine and the gall bladder. Not to sound too gross but the large intestine really does look like linked up sausages, good job i dont like them!! This woman had several holes in her stomach with many instruments inserted doing different things as the surgeon cut away at what i think may have been fat around her intestines but i am not sure. This operation wasn't as interesting as i had no idea what was going on.
We are really lucky to be able to watch in on all these different types of operations, i wonder what next month has in store for us!!

looking hot in our surgery clothes!!

Weekend in Kyoto!

On 23rd May i set off on a flight to Osaka with my family where we would then catch the train to Kyoto for the weekend. One thing i have learned is that train stations are not designed for big suitcases or for people who have too many suitcases, stress central!! We arrived in Kyoto at about 8pm to our hotel ANA Crowne Plaza straight across the road from Nijo-jo which was the Shogun's castle. The hotel had a really lovely waterfull with huge colourful koi carp! As we were all tired from travelling all day we ate some dinner in the hotel then headed to bed and i think i had possibly the best nights sleep ever!!

the view of Nijo-jo from our hotel room!!











The next day was 30 degrees and we couldn't quite bare the heat! We headed down to the area by the station and on the way stumbled across a temple - Nishihonganji temple. It was huge, inside people were praying. The structure of the temple was really beautiful and made from wood with gold carvings. Somehow we ended up in an electrical department store with hundreds of cameras and laptops etc and managed to spend almost 2 hours inside wandering about! That night we took the subway to Gion, which is the Geisha district in the hope of catching a glimpse of one but unfortunately we did not. However there were many women wearing beautiful kimono's about. We ate dinner in a shabu shabu restuarant which is another cook it yourself style. You have a pot of boiling water in the middle of the table and you cook your own beef, pork and vegetables. It was also delicious! おいしい!! If i had to choose between shabu shabu and yakiniku i think id choose shabu shabu although it is rather expensive :( Gion is full of life at night time and it was interesting to walk through however the sun rather tired us out and we headed back to the hotel.

The next day we were all taking a guided tour of Kyoto which was split into two tours, one morning and one afternoon broken up by lunch. In the morning we had a Japanese man called Kasey as our tour guide and he was possibly the funniest, most entertaining person i have ever met!   He was really good at his job and made it very fun. We firstly visited Higashihonganji temple which is the eastern temple of the one we had previously visited the day before. Kasey told us about this huge tree which was planted in the courtyard outside of the temple, that hundreds of years ago when the temple caught fire the tree spurted water from it and put the fire out. Not sure how much of that is true but it is a lovely story to tell! Inside was just as beautiful as the western temple however this time we were allowed to take pictures.

Next stop was Nijo-jo castle across from our hotel. Inside we werent allowed to take pictures but it was pretty big and each room was significant. It was built for the shogun to live in and to prevent intruders in the castle, nightingale flooring was put in. When many people walk on nightingale flooring the sound is similar to being inside an aviary. The floor boards made a high pitched squeaking sound to alert the people in the castle that there is someone walking around. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside but outside in the gardens we were and it was also beautiful there! 

Next stop was the Golden Pavilion also known as Kinkaku-ji. It was extremely busy here, i think it is possibly one of the most popular sights in Kyoto and it is understandable why. The pavilon sits at a far side of a pond which is surrounded by lovely gardens. the Golden Pavilion is a Zen Buddhist temple but unfortunately it was burned down by a Buddhist Monk in the 1950's, it has now been fully restored to its original form but it is not as old as many of the other temples in Kyoto. 

 After the Golden pavillion we headed to a hotel a little bit away from the Center of Kyoto for a buffet lunch. After we had stuffed our faces with pasta, rolls and ice cream we headed for the second half of the tour. This time out tour guide changed to a lovely little woman but unfortunately i cant remember her name. She wasn't as funny as Kasey but she was nice all the same. The next temple we headed to, Heian Jingu Shrine, i cant remember much about unfortunately. There were girls on their way to a wedding dressed in beautiful kimono's. My dad and i managed to catch a glimpse of the bride and groom dressed in traditional Japanese wedding clothing. It is very different to what we have in the UK.
All temples in Japan seem to  be surrounded by beautiful gardens and ponds, this temple was no exception. There was turtles swimming in the pond as well as huge carp. It was really peaceful and nice to walk around and enjoy the sun although not for too long as i didnt want to risk getting burnt again!!

The next place we headed to was probably one of the most impressive and again we were not allowed to take pictures but i managed to find a couple on the internet to show. The temple is called Sangusangen-do and is another Buddhist Temple. This one is unique as it houses 10001 wooden statues of the temple's deity- the thousand armed Kannon who is the goddess of Mercy. There is 500 human sized statues to the right of the temple and 500 human sized on the left separated by a huge statue of the deity in the middle.

Next stop was up on the hills , Kiyomizudera Temple which provided a brilliant view of the city. It houses an impressive Pagoda as well as many verandas where you can enjoy the view from the hilltops of Kyoto. There was many girls dressed in kimono's here posing for pictures! The hill up to the temple was lined with souvenir shops selling Japanese style ornaments, purses , kimono's, japanese food you name it they had it. Unfortunately i am a sucker for a souvenir shop and ended up buying a black kimono decorated with sakura and cranes! 


 

That was our last stop on the tour so we headed back to the hotel to grab our bags and hopped on the train back to Osaka Kansai airport where we were staying the night. We ate dinner at yet another Italian, i think my family's favourite food is probably Italian we should live in Italy! In the morning i said goodbye to my parents and sisters as there flight back home was just after 10am. I hung around the airport for a couple of hours where i found a subway, the first one i have came across in Japan. I was so happy, i had my usual ham and cheese covered in mayonnaise and sat and read my book and completed a few sudoku puzzles before my flight at 2:30pm. My flight back to Nagasaki had some serious turbulence and i thought when we were coming into landing that we were going to be landing in the sea, luckily the runway came into view just as we touched down. I had never noticed before that Nagasaki airport was a man made island, scary stuff! So now im back to my usual routine of work and eating toast for dinner , it was lovely having my family over to visit and the next time i see them will be back at home!! Crazy stuff, i am now half way through my placement,how time flies!!

Again all of my pictures have been uploaded to my facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/chloe.aaa/photos