just had our first real "problem" here in japan... the apartment staff don't keep painkillers on hand (only diarrhea killers) and the convenience stores don't have ANY medicine (only vitamin supplements for cold prevention).

my wife's stomach hurt really badly from 23 o'clock up until 8 when i finally got her permission to go to the neighbour's (my classmate's) and ask if she had any painkillers; we got some Ibuprofin and after giving my wife a headache and chills (which are for some reason listed as "very rare" side-effects when shit like vomiting is a "normal" side effect) it worked.

so now we know: ALL medicine, as well as hand cream, skin lotion and conditioner is sold in pharmacies. shampoo you can get pretty much anywhere but not conditioner. shampoo + conditioner is also really expensive, i personally don't use either one but my wife refuses to quit even though she knows it'd make her hair better in the long run so...

anyway, as backstory, my wife's always had a harder time eating healthier than me and her health has always been worse because of it. in our first week here everything was great and she felt great, better than she had in a long time, we were basically only eating nattou, pure meat and convenience store onigiri (even though the onigiri has grape sugar/stevia and stuff in it it appears to not really make us sick). when she started eating soy sauce, pre-made mochi (= white rice flour) and mayonnaise every day she noticed herself feeling sicker, after a week of feeling mildly sick she quit that.

but to replace those she started eating more and more sugary foods (= fruits, pre-made amazake, carbonated water with artificial flavourings...) and now in the past few days has been eating ONLY sweet potatoes (both normal and dried), fruit and mincemeat. from time to time she eats like, a cucumber or some rice. and all she ever talks about with food is how she wants to eat junk food (real junk food, like doughnuts and chocolate).

since a long time ago, i've only ever wanted to eat junk food when i was REALLY hungry and would thus eat anything, or if i was say at a party and just kinda felt left out that i couldn't eat anything (thus it wasn't the fact that it's junk food — which is her feeling — to me it's just that it's any food). and yeah, i DID used to get cravings for stuff like white bread or pasta when i saw/smelled them but it really did stop a long time ago, which is why i think if my wife could just actually stop it with all the fruit and start eating fermented stuff every day (even the storebought kimchi she likes has some kind of sweetener in it, because she doesn't like any sour foods) she'd soon be fine. but even if i try to force her she just refuses. she goes "that food's bitter!" for example and i go "it's only bitter because you're constantly eating fruit and other sugary stuff, you need to let your tastebuds change all the way". i'm not saying this out of thin air, i went through the exact same experience y'know!!

here in japan i've been eating miso for 1-3 meals a day, nattou once a day, seafood or liver around once a day, less than one piece of fruit a day (fruit = DESSERT only). i'm eating stuff like miso paste mashed into rice, miso soup with fish sperm/intestines (yeah really: it's tasteless and has a texture like cream), oysters with red chili paste (kimchi paste). the only times i've felt even a little bit sick was 1. when i was eating soy sauce and mayonnaise, which were relatively mild "sicknesses" (meaning bad dreams or waking up at night but nothing else) and 2. once when i tried tofu and once when i had soy sauce that had wheat in it, both times after which i couldn't sleep at ALL that night. otherwise i've been just fine and ex. while my wife thinks she got sick from some drinks we tried yesterday, i drank from them too and didn't get sick one bit. and she's really craving fruit and stuff all thet time. i really think it's the sugar... she "doesn't know what cramps are" so we can't say for sure but we think she had abdominal cramps and you apparently get cramps from fructose among other things.

i asked the neighbour to tell the teachers + pick up my handouts for me, and i emailed the lady in charge of the exchange students (she also works at the reception desk i think) that i'm not coming to class today... i have no idea how many days you can skip class in a semester, they haven't told us. i'm just REALLY tired of my wife continuously NOT watching her diet despite that she's sick way more often than me and should thus have the actual motivation to watch it. she acts like i'm the mean one because i'm trying to be so strict about food blah blah but y'know what, it's a lot nicer for everyone involved if the person you do everything with isn't sick (and thus also cranky) 24/7. whenever she feels sick she also gets panic attacks, like OCD cleaning, and starts picking fights me with me about stuff like how it's my fault she's getting the OCD cleaning attack because I'M the "messy one". then i get irritated because she's wasting so much water and soap and we don't even know how expensive utilities are here yet because it's just the first month! she has to rise a bowl like 10 times because she swears the soap isn't all gone from it, that's not healthy and it's reaaaaally irritating... but it's super obvious that she does all this OCD blah blah shit AFTER she's eaten something bad and BEFORE she gets PHYSICALLY sick from that bad food. so the mental side-effects of the bad food come before the physical, for her. it's just that she doesn't usually believe it comes from the food, because she's not keeping track of anything.