I'm sick. At the insistence of my co-workers and supervisor, I went to the doctor for the first time in Japan. The experience was painless -- barely a wait, an English-speaking doctor, a $10 charge for the check-up and the medication -- but I left with FIVE types of pills, including an antibiotic. If reading the public service posters taped up around the doctors' offices I have visited throughout my life have taught me anything, it's that you don't treat a cold or the flu with antibiotics. So that really weirded me out and then I became leery of all the medication he gave me. Before I took anything, I had a Japanese-speaking friend look at the medication list and tell me exactly what each one was. There was a stomach-soothing pill, I think because the antibiotic would irritate my stomach. Not taking that. Next: a harmless throat lozenge. Fine. Then: a pill for my sneezing, which seemed okay, but it was listed as a treatment for allergies. Uh...no. Finally: a cough suppressant, which a Japanese medical website likened to codeine or morphine. Huh.

So I've just been taking some over-the-counter cold medicine smuggled in from America and it's been fine. I'm now at the terrible-hairball-cough stage, but my fever is gone and my nose has finally stopped running. I also have to credit my diet of rye toast, mandarin oranges, rice gruel and kimchee. Kimchee is kind of like an antibiotic -- you reek so bad after eating it that nothing at all will want to come near you, including bacteria. Yummy.