What a day. After 6 weeks of skin irritation, swollen knots and occasionally incapacitating pain in the upper neck, I followed a friends recommendation and went to see her doctor at the hospital where she teaches English to the nurses. Easy enough, I thought. Explain the situation, have her look at the back of my head (I'm still having trouble looking for things in that area by myself) maybe get some ointment or something. I should have known, when I saw the place that things might get more interesting. It was a women's clinic.
I guess my friend just started teaching them. But I managed to communicate that my problem was in the upper half of my body and that I was not pregnant. After having waited for an hour, I was led to the doctor. She was very nice and told me that as a gynocologist she didn't feel qualified to help me. She referred me to a dermatologist down the street. When I saw him 30 minutes later, he really did discover several irritated and infected areas on my scalp (it's the water. gotta start washing my hair with mineral water). But I refused taking cortisone. Apparently that was making things too complicated for his taste and I was sent to the Internist one floor down. From this point on, all English ability was absent from any participant. The last thing that was communicated was "-----sore throat?" "No". Then my head was moved, my shoulder bent, in brutal manner. I reacted accordingly. A lot of Korean followed. The nurse came in and was instructed to lead me away----to the Orthopedic Specialist. No English. More bending, moving stretching. X-ray of my shoulder (they don't seem to do the lead protection suit thing here). Diagnosis in Korean. The nurse appeared with a syringe. I saw, jumped and escaped, by the skin of my teeth. Please be careful when you visit Korea......

After a long night of raw fish (Korean style, meaning not chewable) and Karaoke with Bud-Whiskey I awoke to the realization, that the reason I haven't been able to move my neck in 4 weeks isn't stress, but swollen lymph nodes. Choi claims I am not going to die. I am not convinced. Better try to find something fun to do tomorrow. Pusan Short Film Festival has started. I'll report.

After the blurred genital experience and one too many Korean covers of German New Wave, I jumped on a boat to Japan. For: Japan is a country where in porn movies blurrs are replaced by mosaique patterns (unless you choose ANIME, La Blue Girl being a classic) and there is J-pop instead of New Wave. And it was great: Fukuoka is a decent little city whith skyscrapers, redlight district, shopping malls and little temples. The boatride there was 3 hours, the hotel was fine, the wheather was nice, the people spoke a slightly more comprehensable language. The problems started when we had to return to Busan. First, we didn't want to. Then, half way through the Pacific, the boat also decided it didn't want to and had engine problems. Then the storm came. I learned several things in those 8 (!) hours: A little ship moves quite a lot even when there are hardly any waves. A little ship moves quite a bit more when the engine is running on 1/10th strength. A little ship in a storm with a damaged motor beats any roller coaster. I am happy to report that me and the crew were not vomiting. But what is the real lesson I needed to learn today? Never leave Japan?