Again the common room is alight with activity. The baseball draft causing such excitement of a few days ago has been replaced by Game 1 of the Japanese equivalent of the World Series, with the Yomiuri Giants taking on the Rakuten Eagles. Osaka residents rarely take interest in any game that doesn’t involve the Hanshin Tigers, so despite the importance of the game, there isn’t very much visible excitement here. My hunch is that most are pulling for Rakuten, a Sendai-based team whose stadium was heavily damaged in the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Oh, the Giants just scored and no one cheered. Perhaps I was right!
The throng of visitors I was anticipating failed to materialize. I get the feeling my hospital ward is doubling as a nursing home for some of the older patients who are no longer able to look after themselves. I really have no idea how many patients there are my floor, but yesterday evening I counted over twenty food trays.
Speaking of food, the lack of food variety is starting to become of of the toughest issues with my new life in the hospital. Usually in Osaka I find a good balance between traditional Japanese cuisine and hearty ethnic flavors, but I’m not offered that luxury here. Last night I finally negotiated with the nurse to lower the amount of white rice with my meals from 300 to 200 grams. Even with the smaller portions, I’m still unable to finish the sticky, glutinous lump of carbohydrates. I’m more of the long-grain, brown rice school of nutrition, so I fear that my affinity for white rice will be inversely proportional to the length of my stay.
Other than the rice, the main and side dishes aren’t bad. Ask me again in a few weeks and I might change my mind, but the food is definitely more palatable than what’s on offer aboard most flights and about what you’d expect to find in a school cafeteria. My daily game has been to try to guess what meals will be served as the meal trays are being carted down the hall to my room. Since I’m at the very end of the hall, I’m the very last person to receive my daily allotment of nutrients. I never need to check my watch to see when the food will be delivered. I only need to keep my ears peeled for “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, the chime that the cruel designers at Panasonic have built into the meal storage machine. Mary had a Little Lamb? Old McDonald is more like it!
Another satisfied customer
TB'd in Japan 