My First Trip to a Japanese Hospital

After not having been able to recover from a cold for over 2 weeks, i finally decided to take the plunge, and submit self to the mercy of Japanese doctors - about whom i had heard horror stories to chill the bones. I anyway dislike doctors - no let me not say that, i should rather say - i dislike visiting them.

so what is it like in a Japanese hospital? well, its pretty much similar... except for the language... you have to register at the main desk; wait for your call; then a nurse takes all the info: whats wrong with u, your temperature, pulse, BP etc. then you wait some more till the doc calls you, you repeat everything again, and in the process some poor old man faints/has a heart attack and there is pandemonium in the ER, you are shooed away to a corner to observe CPR.

Well, i am sure it doesn't always happen like this but this is what happened today. after things calmed down, i was taken to another doc who had Santa-red-jolly-cheeks and spoke some English. i have absolutely no idea what interaction took place between him and my sensei, but i was told to drink lots of water, cough out whenever i felt like-as in not to hold it in, and to rest. i got a powdery medicine from a pharmacy and went to buy my groceries.

the things of interest were the various anti-bacterial liquids keep at the entrance, which had to be used on the following circumstances: dizziness, vomiting, loosies, and cough. my sensei couldn't explain the exact reason for these oddities while we both just de-bacterial-ized our hands. I was left on my own to ponder: was one to spray the fluid on one's arse if they had loosies? or ones head if they felt dizzy? mouth for the other two symptoms? i am sorry but i don't understand why these four conditions were posted. i can understand that when entering a hospital one has to sanitize potential germ-carriers, so why the even mention these four in particular....? Why not just tell people to spray the alcohol as they were entering a sanitized atmosphere? I guess its coz this is Japan... land of the inexplicable situations!!