IMG_20171230_165154 (Salesgrils, just hangin' out)

Sales girls take a break

Old methods, new equipment

Old methods, new equipment.jpgI’ve been acupunctured before but not in Mainland China. As far as traditional medicine goes, I think it has some basis to it. In theory at least.

My first experience with acupuncture was for my asthma. I hate needles, and eyeing up the needles, the very thought running through my mind was “geez, those are really long needles”. But once they’re in, it’s something you can get used to. However, I tend to be wary of assistants or anyone in the proximity with fast and jerky movements. Then came the herbal cigars (for the insertion points) and electro-stimulation. All in all a relaxing process in a forced kind of way but, in no-way did it help my asthma. Not. One. Bit.

But in reference to the photo, they were obviously renovating their surgery.

Speed sock, goes to hop-along

Speed sock.jpgRecovery of my leg has moved up a stage, and I’m back on my feet. This time without the aid of crutches. the trouble with crutches is that I’ve gotten to use them very


well, to the point that I can actually outpace someone on foot. Prior to this, I’ve tried exercising moving my leg while on out in the park.


Moving around in my apartment can be problematic with crutches, so, today I tried, with the

aid of my walking cast to get something on my wife’s desk. It was slow but, I was able to awkwardly move without pain. Superb. In commem

oration of this, is a listing of famous people who existed on crutches or in a wheelchair at

Speed sok plus walking cast.jpg

one time or another.

Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Paul Sheldon (Misery by Stephen King)
Stephen King

Davros (A character from Doctor Who)

Celebrities list

I can however do no better than to quote Dr. Strangelove himself in saying, “Mein Führer, I can WALK!”.

A toothy problem, the dentist was old-school?

Image from

Lack of dental care and time has forced me to a dentist’s chair. Again. This time the bill certainly was cheaper, but the dentist decided to replace my amalgam fillings with… silver amalgam. I know that all things silver is now trendy but, isn’t a retrograde move? I would have preferred plastic fillings, since they tend to last longer, be almost invisable and are chemically inert…

Ignorance is bliss, but this dentist had all the toys to play with. Including a thumb sized digital camera which gave me a vivid close up of the affected tooth.  Wow, I have to admit having a slight cringe factor at looking the tooth on the screen. A contoured white molar on the screen has it’s obvious errors to be repaired. Was that fissure supposed to be there? (The dentist told me it was a stain and it wasn’t a crack). The story isn’t over, I return to see him again on Tuesday, to have the silver fillings smoothed over. This never happens with plastic fillings, but according to online information, they do have their disadvantages.

More links on plastic, or composite fillings can be found here.

Bum and tit, asses and elbows

Pictures can quite often transgress the language barriers. Looking at the bus-stop advertisement, the picture was quite literal, with their wares quite literally out for show.

National health insurance should be proud of themselves for being an absolutely transparent operation with their services. According to my wife, the advertisement says that you should periodically check for cancer (see picture). The ad does this, rather graphically.

Village of the dead, only the bus could save me

Not so much dead, more of a warm body. Perhaps walking into the local Pharmacy wasn’t such a bright idea.  The pharmacy stank, reeked of traditional medicine being brewed by sets of pressure cookers.  An old woman with a voice, like a rusty gate being opened, asked for, and got her bottle of tonic. In front of me, stood an old woman, waiting for he prescription to be filled. Beside her sat an even older woman, seated. I guess her bones felt a bit tired.

The old and the elderly sat in chairs not unlike sitting at a bar waiting to be served their medicinal liquor. While the pharmacy assistant (possibly the pharmacist’s wife) hurried about making up off the shelf prescriptions. Another woman, not as old (and obviously not as sick, was standing while she took her meds) drank her three bottles of off the shelf medicine, then put them into the correct recycling bin.

After having gotten her daily fix, she then turned to me and just stared. I was onto her and didn’t return her stare. She snuffled in way only Koreans can, and walked out, through the exit; Spurned by my non-repsonsiveness. Yo Mama, zom-bina! I’ve been here too long to fall for that gag.

Escaping the fume-filled pharmacy, after being served my over priced anti-histamines, I walked to the bus terminal and the waiting room. Got my bus ticket, and waited. Not one person in the waiting room was under 50.  So many people waiting to die, but more immediately, waiting for the bus to arrive.

I went outside to get some air, a little disturbed at seeing all those elder people. Maybe the bus terminal doubled as a day-care centre, but more likely the younger demographic were at work, or at school.

Billy the kid and the bowl of fire

All of the teachers from my middle school had gone to a students home/ restaurant to have dinner, as a way of thanks from the parents.

Served straight from the pressure cooker, goats meat, with a side dish of goats skin. Poor kiddie. But it was delicious. The ‘dipping sauce’ for the goats meat was a mixture of Go chu jang and twen jang, or fermented bean sauce. Certainly every cook has their own preferences and I have to say that every dish that wasn’t peppered with red pepper, was salted to an inch of its preserved fibre.

Easily fixed with a drink though. They had a selection of beer or so-ju. I chose the so-ju; you just can’t go wrong with it. One glass later the soup course come around and is sat on a portable gas burner to heat. Given a ladles worth in a stainless steel bowl, I sampled it. I was surprised it didn’t melt the spoon as it melted and killed off most of the taste buds on my tongue. This was a bowl full of pepper spice, not as a seasoning, but as a major ingredient in the recipe. Maybe if you’re making nitroglycerine. If I drank the entire bowl, I was have had an asthma attack and have anaphylaxtic shock at the same time. This stuff was explosive.

Finally they they trotted out some bottles of home-made berry wine. I’ve got a bottle of this stuff at home, and this tastes nice. Don’t get me wrong, this stuff here also tasted nice, but had been fermenting for way too long. It was like some berry-brandy-wine rather than wine it was supposed to be.

It just occurred to me that everything that I ate was amped up, and out, to the maximum possible extent. Almost everyone at the table I was sitting was either red in the face or was feeling hot. One teacher even fanned himself; the food was that spicy.

Talk about a gastronomic olympics. My collegues were *well seasoned eaters*, but this meal certainly had them going.