So that was Golden Week. I went to go see an ENT (ear, nose, throat doctor) twice the next week. In Japanese. And I actually understood most of what he told me. My basic pattern of allergy-induced congestion is easily solvable with a little Sudafed in the US, but in Japan it’s illegal. Why? It’s too strong a stimulant. Not that Japanese coffee isn’t ten times stronger than a tiny pill of ephedrine like that. Japanese over-the-counter medicine is pretty weak. The theory is, you should go see a doctor if you need anything more.

This doctor knows how to make money. The first time I went, before Golden Week, he gave me only 10 days’ antihistamines and wouldn’t give me antibiotics. So I went back a second time with really serious symptoms, only to have him give me four days of antibiotics and ask me to come back again. Only when I returned for a third time did he give me the full week’s dose of antibiotics it actually took to get rid of whatever –itis it had become.

This wasn’t all bad, though, because with my Friday afternoon (since I have no Friday classes!) and clutching my bus map (printed entirely in kanji mind you) I went to go explore two more World Heritage shrines: Shimogawa-jinja and Kamogawa-jinja. Both are beautiful and nestled in large nature preserves; Shimogawa is at one end of a protected forest, and Kamogawa is on the side of a hill. Both are sprawling campuses with multiple buildings for ceremonies, priest business, and the like. And both had a fair number of tourists.