As I mentioned before, it’s not good to be a fat guy in Korea. From floor seating in traditional restaurants, to small chairs when you find them at all, to the beds made of cardboard… it’s difficult to be big and in Korea.
Yesterday, it was difficult to be big and sick in Korea.
I haven’t slept all that well since we arrived, with the beds being designed in such a way that a thin, firm mattress simply rests on the floor or a bed frame. Here, the bed frame is simply a wooden slab on top of a base. If you’re a bigger person, your joints are going to take a serious level of strain in this arrangement, which doesn’t feel all that much better than simply lying on the floor. With all the exercise I’ve been doing, adding those aches and pains into the mix has been making the situation far worse.
To top it off, the ill-advised late night consumption of some orange juice the night before last led me to having a stomach acid issue, to the point where James went out at 6AM and got me a bottle of unsolicited milk to try and settle my stomach.
Huge mistake.
Korean milk tastes totally different than what you’d expect back in the US, and this particular batch of it seemed to border on “dangerously different” even as I drank it. Though I finished my glass, I determined quickly that it was not necessarily a good idea.
Two hours later, both myself and the hotel bathroom discovered just how bad an idea it really was when I vomited all over the place.
I spent the rest of the following day sitting in the hotel room, aching and wishing I were home. I still feel pretty badly that way, and we seriously need to find a way to make the accomodations more survivable. If I had it, I’d pay a hell of a lot for a ticket home or a good hotel for the rest of this trip.
April 17th, 2010 on 6:17 am
Oh man. There can be nothing worse than being sick and far from home. Especially when one is sick in a foreign country with no CVS or Walgreen’s close by.
Hope you are feeling better by now. There is truly something to be said for good old home and all our creature comforts.
Feel better.
Love, Mum & Al
April 17th, 2010 on 4:00 pm
Sorry about your tummy. Don’t forget it’s not the milk, it’s what’s in it. (Say whuh?) When people go from country to country, there are different “critters” in the water. When you’re raised in a specific location, your immune system gets dialed in for the rest of your live, PROVIDED that you don’t move. Going through 14 time zones (or more?) definitely qualifies as moving. So drink “leaded Pepsi” if you want a drink of something. Completely lay-off those local versions of liquid refreshment.
Now…about my computer. I can’t get the sound to work. Is that something you could investigate from there? I checked the preferences and it said I had “no sound device installed.” I don’t remember even seeing that box before or uninstalling anything.
Any ideas?
Dave
April 18th, 2010 on 12:59 am
Well…you’d be proud of me, again. Ran up into the systems folder, checked out the the printer spooling function. Everything okay. Installed and ran a virus check. Everything okay. Messed with the printer preferences. Everything okay. Checked the network wiring. Everything okay. So…audio in the laptop still didn’t work. Printer function still didn’t work on DV Store 1. I blamed it on the fact that I didn’t have Internet Explorer version 8. I loaded it. Rebooted, and now everything works fine. Audio on the laptop. It works. Printer on DV Storm 1 works great. Time to go to bed on a surface that could keep a border collie in doggy smiles for years.
When ya comin’ home? Ya gettin’ any real work done over there?
April 18th, 2010 on 5:17 am
Glad to hear you got things straightened out, Dave. And no, I haven’t done a damn thing of note so far this trip. Been too tired and sick since the first two days!
Crossed fingers, though.