Traveling the World

I fell asleep feeling fine, but woke up several times during the night with heart burn and bad reflux. Finally around 7am I got up and did what I felt was necessary. I threw up. Lucky for me there was no need for the finger poking, but it still was nasty.

——-

In other news, I got together with my Chinese friend that we’ll call Bobby. Yesterday we took a bus across the river into the Hanyang district and entered an old TV Tower that had been redesigned as an observatory. We were extremely lucky to have a second straight day with no pollution clouds and awesome blue sky. Only downside was the 60rmb we paid to enter. Oh well, the pictures were good and that’s all that matters.

Today at work I am going to talk to my boss and see if the school will sponsor me for a work visa, but then only continue to work for them part-time until I look for a real full-time job. It was suggested to me by Matt, so I guess we’ll see what happens. Because my primary school is off this week, I could hop over to Hong Kong for a few days to get a new visa (if the school agrees). I have plenty of money for it since I’ve been saving for such a case (and/or the trip in February). I’m trying to get Mark to come too, but chances are I’ll be on my own. I’m still a bit scared of traveling on my own, but it’ll happen sooner or later, so better sooner than later!

Click here for the newest pictures.

Before I moved to China, I was never interested in Asians. Maybe it was the fact that (no offense to any readers) the beautiful Asians remain in Asia. All I know is, I never even considered dating an Asian girl. Then I came to China and realized that if I was going to be happy (or active), that I would have to date Asian girls, as foreigners just don’t exist where I live (and again, foreigners do NOT move 8000 miles away to live in the Middle Kingdom just to meet other foreigners).

For a few months I was grappling with myself over the idea of being able to love an Asian. Then it was marrying an Asian. Then it was having a child with an Asian. I was dead set on importing a Russian girl or something. But I had a real discussion with myself about it and realized that it doesn’t matter who I marry or have kids with. It doesn’t matter if they’re black, brown, white, yellow or purple. The only thing that matters is that you love each other. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I promote interracial marriages because hopefully then the world will be able to live in peace. If millions upon millions of people married between races, then the world will hopefully lose its desire to kill itself, because they’d only be hurting their own children and grandchildren.

Now don’t take this to mean I’m going to marry this girl. Remember, I only just met her. But I DO want a family, so I’m taking this seriously.

I searched for enlightenment via the help of a friend I met online named JD. He helped me realize what I wanted in life, and without his help I think things would have been a bit harder.

So now comes the moral of this post: After quitting my first job in China (New Oriental), I met a very beautiful girl at my private school job. I knew she liked me so I told her about my problem and explained that I liked her too and I wanted to get over my problem. Well.. now she’s my girlfriend.

To top it all off, my body temperature was 95.5F (35C). So I bundled myself in 2 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of socks, a long sleeve shirt with a light fleece on top, and a heavy ski jacket on top of that. I proceeded to make a mad dash for the closest hospital (thank god a private one is located within a football field’s length) around 4pm with the help of Mark and his girlfriend. We arrived at the hospital and they brought me into a small room with a doctor (if you’ve read about my previous encounters with doctors in Asia, then you’ll know how this ended up) who refused to let me lay down because he needed to talk to me first. In America you go straight to the hospital bed and then they find out symptoms. Here, despite the agony of having no energy to stand or hold myself up even in a chair, they force you to answer questions before admitting you.

So they made me walk up to the second floor for a blood test. They pricked my finger, only to tell me 3 minutes later that I needed to remove my jacket so they could take more blood from my arm (remember, at this point my body was 95.5F, I needed all the heat I could get). Then 5 minutes later the doctor comes up to the blood-testing room and finally lets me go to a bed. They put me under a blanket, to which I demanded a second layer. Later on I demanded a third layer, but that’s a different story.

They gave me an IV cocktail with glucose and some other things and kept giving me hot water to drink to re-hydrate myself. The door to my room was open and had 4 other beds in it. At all times there was at least one other patient, and of course their family. Now if you haven’t been to China, which I assume to be all of my audience, then you are unaware of the fact that privacy doesn’t exist here. Nor do good manners. So then let it be known that during meals (and hospital stays) you will not have peace and quiet. The people in my room were almost at screaming level, so I found it necessary to vomit frequently so they would shut up (I vomited 3 or 4 times during the 5 hour stay).

This morning I felt a bit better but still weak. I took off work and stayed home to rest and drink vast amounts of water so as to not become dehydrated again. A co-worker of mine is coming over after she finishes work at 8:30pm to take care of me. After that I’ll sleep some more and go to work in the morning as planned.. let’s just hope the diarrhea goes away soon.