Needed: bed and rest – Got: nothing
Jul 24th, 2007 by Peter
21th July 2007 Yilan – Gao Leng
I slept ok again for the second night in a row. I’m still ill, so a good night’s sleep is essential. C had agreed to visit her sister’s house yet again today, so we had a bath and grabbed a taxi there. I had already turned down sightseeing since I wouldn’t risk my improving health on getting worse again. So instead we just relaxed. C talked with her sister while her brother-in-law watched some TV. I was laid down the bed and soon fell asleep. I think I was gone for 2 hours. Wouldn’t have thought I could sleep that much so soon after a long nights sleep, but it was no problem. I was in desperate need to catch up after the many days of miserable sleep and illness.
I was awoken at 12.00 to eat some ‘jaozi’. Excellent and I munched down a lot (still not much compared to when I’m healthy, but still cool to be back on track).
2.00am we would be off to C’s other sister’s second home in Gao Leng. A smaller city not that far from Yilan. Here we would meet C’s sister’s brother-in-law’s family (that was freaking long sentence, eh?). At 1.00pm I was still very dizzy. It was to the point where I expected that my blood pressure was too high as I’ve tried back in Denmark. So I asked C if we had time to go and get it checked out. We had, so before meeting at the highway to get the bus, we took a taxi to the hospital.
As feared my blood pressure was now higher than good was. The doctor believed it was due to my flu/exhaustion, so he ordered me to continue to take some flu medicine (which I had stopped since I thought it was only for my fever that was now gone). He looked down my throat, which now had turned red. I hadn’t noticed anything myself as it felt fine. He also told me to pick up some blood pressure lowering medicine to eat while the flu was going. When the flu was over, I should come back and get the blood pressure tested again. I hated it, but I felt so dizzy that I was ready to try anything. We were soon off to another city and I wanted to make sure I had what I needed to get me by. We picked up the medicine, went to the highway and met up with C’s sisters and brothers-in-law.
The bus ride was about 1 hour and we were set off at C’s sister’s second computer school, where I could relax a bit and use the Internet.
Dinnertime and we were going to a nearby restaurant for some hotpot. Now – hotpot have never done it for me. The Chinese adore it, but I don’t quite understand why. I find it quite boring. On the other hand I don’t dislike it, its just a little “blaaah”. So, we settled and I saw the many ingredients being carried in were seafood. I’m not big on seafood at all. Actually the only thing I really like is shrimp. Fortunately there were some jumbo sized ones of those too. I quickly finished, as I was still not completely on schedule with my stomach yet, but also because the room was a bit too small and some people started smoking. It got a little too dense to me. My throat was beginning to show signs of my being ill, so the smoke annoyed more than usual. C also had a sore throat. Worse than me actually, so she was easy to convince about walking a bit outside, while her family finished eating/drinking/smoking.
Outside there were some older ladies doing their exercises. It looked more like a show to me. There was a 3 man band playing the same intoxicating rhythm over and over again. The ladies dance-walked and waved some pink and green fans along the way. Almost like a carnival back home.
Dinner was over and we headed back to the computer school. C asked if it was ok that we checked in to a hotel, to which I answered “sure”. I looked forward to sleeping at a hotel, with hopefully a regular toilet and possible a shower. Somehow this got changed to us sleeping at the school. It was an ok bed and all, but the air was so dusty, that I had a hard time sleeping. C fell asleep pretty fast, but she coughed a lot due to her throat and the dust too. I later found out that it was not the school that was dusty. It was all the air in Gao Leng. The dry soil here and the windy weather combined made everything dusty. A wet towel over my mouth and nose finally helped me fall asleep, but surely not the best night here. Not the worst either.