October First, I boarded a flight to Chicago, then connected to Hong Kong. That flight was about 15.5 hours in a coach-class window seat next to an older Chinese man who felt his elbows needed more space than allotted by the airline. I spent most of the time curled up against the window, trying to ignore him.
Customs was a lot easier than I expected. Then followed Phil's directions to get to his place. Train to subway to department store to apartment building. The worst part was wandering around the subway station trying to find the customer service desk because the HK$10 and $20 bills I had were too large for the single-ride machines, and too small for the card-issuing machines. I got to the department store, and was a little unsure about the directions, but sure enough, go through the toy department, and there was the door to the apartment building. Hong Kong is a mall. A series of interconnected malls, actually. As Phil said, it's possible to live in HK and never actually go outside. By now it is about 7:30 on the Second. We ended up at an Outback for dinner. It's a mall, so the choices are surprisingly mall-like.
Friday, the Third, I was kind of tired from the time-shift, so I lay around while he was at work. We met up with this kid from Boston that another friend had put me in touch with, but we ended up at a sports-bar, and the only food available was appetizers. I had coconut shrimp.
Saturday I had a sore throat. Sunday I was miserable, and said I had strep and needed antibiotics. Monday, ditto. And the coughing started. Phil was of the opinion that penicillin was available OTC in HK, but apparently not at the chain drugstores.
Tuesday we flew to Melbourne. Phil had booked us on business class for the Australia trip. I have to say, flying is such a different experience in the expensive seats! Almost pleasant! Our hotel was not far from the hospital, so the first thing I did was head to the ER. I had strep, and was given penicillin. They said they'd mail me the bill. I managed to drag myself to eat a couple times, and went to one museum, but mostly stayed in bed taking medicines and feeling miserable. Then the hiccups started, and continued to jerk me around for two days. I was SO uncomfortable I wanted to just die.
Friday, the Tenth, we flew to Sydney. Great downtown location. I mostly lay in bed feeling miserable. Dragged myself to go eat a couple times. Monday I was starting to feel a little better, so we took a trip out to a wildlife park. I figured, if I'm going to only see ONE thing in Australia, it should be the unique wildlife. They let some of the animals wander loose.
The little girl in pink was some random kid whose parents seemed unconcerned that she was wandering around completely unattended. We were waiting for the ostrich to get annoyed and bite her, but it never did. They also let you pet the koala bears. You can't hold them, but you can pet them.
On Tuesday, we headed back to HK. Wednesday we took the train ride up to the top of Victoria Peak. Guess what. It's a mall. They built a mall at the top of the mountain from which you can look at the city below. Thursday we took a guided bus tour of Macau. Like HK, it's a colony that was returned to China a few years ago. But Macau was Portuguese, not British, so all the signs and names are listed in Chinese and in Portuguese. The tour was a little hokey, and some of the historical sites seem a little forced, but it was a fun diversion. This is the remains of some famous church that was blown up my mistake in the late 1800's.
And this is a Portuguese family was saw at the museum. I think the boys were boyfriends, but Phil thinks they're just brothers. Who goes on family museum trips at that age?
And on Friday, the Seventeenth, we packed up to head back. I realized that morning that I could not find my cellphone. The last I had used it was in Sydney, so Phil ended up calling the hotel to see if they had it and could ship it back. The strep seemed to have subsided, but the cough was still going strong.
When I landed, Phil's friend Dan picked me up, and brought me over to Daemian's house. He had been watching my car for me. Since I was without cellphone, though, and he was not home, it took about 45 minutes to get ahold of him. I ended up calling his work (he had left for the day already) and asked his boss to relay a message for me. Losing a cellphone is a huge pain, since I no longer know anybody's phone numbers from memory. Drove home, and picked up some Mucinex. It seems to be helping, but the cough has not gone away. My roommate had bronchitis while I was gone. I hope I hadn't picked that up, too. I don't seem nearly sick enough for that to be the case, but as of today (10/23) I am still coughing.
Mind you, I lost my health insurance on 9/5/08 when I quit my job. Six years of weekly premiums, and I did not sick once (other than self-medicating a couple minor colds), and a month after leaving, I fall apart.
My unemployment claim get rejected, because the claims lady called me that Wednesday I was in HK, and I didn't call her back. (I didn't check messaged until after I was back home, and had missed her imposed deadline.) So, now it's going to have to churn through the appeals hearing process. I may run out of money. Which will make signing up for health insurance difficult. Which will make this nagging cough a serious problem. And thanks to recent MA state laws, may screw up my tax returns for the 2008 tax year.
