Along with a fair chunk of Hong Kong (and from what I've gathered, large swathes of the US), I spend most of the month sick. After a nonstop work schedule culminated with a conference at the very end of February, myself along with most of my colleagues caught a vicious flu bug. So much so that the first working day after the conference only two of the normally 20 or so people in my office area came to work. I was not one of the two.
Doctors
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| The waiting room of the doctor's office |
This month meant I had to figure out how the health system worked in Hong Kong. My company's health insurance offers an app service that lets me search doctors by specialties and location. Any doctor featured in the app is completely free to visit (yes!)
Like Tinder with dating, this app is a big game of roulette with the knowledge and personality of the people. I should've swiped left and said no, but was too easily tempted by the doctor located closest to my house. The waiting room was packed and crowded and I noticed a lot of Botox signs around... not exactly encouraging when I needed something to tame my fever and sinuses.
When I got called into the doctor's office, it was actually his office. It was another tiny room where the doctor sat at his desk and I on a chair as if I were at a job interview. In all of 30 seconds, he wrote a prescription and I went back to reception to pick up six tiny packets of yellow, pink and white pills. It was unclear what the drugs were or what I was diagnosed with.
I went home, took what I thought was one dose and wound up feeling drunk and nauseated.
When I went to work the next day, my colleague graciously made me an appointment at her family's doctor which was also conveniently close to my home. This doctor was much kinder, his office less chaotic, and was marginally more clear on what the medicine was as well as expected dosages.
All in, I went to the doc three times this month -- more than I had in all of the years I lived in Seattle. I blame the humidity and the mold.
Mold
As the fog settled in last month, the temperature remained cool but the humidity was consistently flirting with 100%. All of a sudden, the walls along the border of the windows bloomed into green and grey spots, looking a bit like blackheads on a nose. Not knowing what to do, I let it be until the color grew more pronounced.
One Sunday morning, while sniffling and running a low-grade fever, I finally pulled out the bleach and a sponge. While I started scrubbing off the blooms of blackheads, my old roommate from Seattle was thankfully in town and started researching mold in Hong Kong.
Apparently it's common and it's a never-ending battle.
She pulled up blog posts describing moldy shoes, moldy sofas and completely wrecked wardrobes from people who left town on a vacation and came back to dank, disgusting clothes. I continued working my way around the windowsills, increasingly horrified by her reports and by what I was seeing.
As I cleaned around the window by my bed, I took a peek behind the headboard and screamed. My roommate thought I had found a gigantic spider. Instead, the wall was covered in fur: black, green and grey fur.
Immediately I knew the source of my sinus woes. I scrubbed once and scrubbed again and promptly turned on my dehumidifier. No doubt by electric bill this month will be triple what I have been paying because my dehumidifier has hardly been turned off.
In addition to seeping into the walls, the moisture has seeped into my bones. While my skin is fabulous, the air feels so thick that it seems to stick inside your lungs along with all of the glorious particulate matter from pollution. Another colleague thought that my never-ending cold was due to the humidity, so she made me some homemade dehumidifying soup with Chinese barley, red beans and a little sugar. It tasted great and the next day my coworkers proclaimed that my hair looked less humidified. Success?
Guests
The highlight of the month was my old roommate visiting from Seattle. I can't express how nice it was spending a lot of time with someone who actually knows me. It felt good getting re-centered.
In the next 10 days alone, I have five guests all from the US coming through town or staying with me. It'll be nice to show off my city.
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