World Traveler: August 7 - The day Japan tries to give me heat stroke

Insect count: some big ants - I could hear insects (they were louder than the passing car and truck engines which freaked me out but I didn't see any of the monsters!)

T5B: 1) I survived the day. 2) I only threw up once. 3) The girls shared their yummy festival food with me. 4) The Shinkansen (bullet train) is air conditioned. 5) I got some pictures and messages out before my phone died today.

I didn't sleep well last night :/. This morning started out with me needing to turn on the dehumidifier. It was a bad omen I tried to ignore. (Having to cool myself off in the morning.) We all got ready and ended up taking a cab down to the station. That was pleasant. The can had a/c and the girls kindly bought me a train ticket to Sendai so I could go with them. We were all set on swimming in the ocean! When we got to Sendai we found out no go. :/ the Sendai station was SWELTERING. I was happy to leave it behind. While in the station I bought a couple umeboshi onigiri (sour plum rice triangle wrapped in seaweed) and a juice box of grapefruit juice. The Japanese say to ward away natsubate (summer sickness) you have to eat sour things. Maybe they're onto something as those were the foods I was craving.

We then got tickets on a train to Matsushima. It's one of the top three sites to see in Japan. When we got there we got tickets for a ferry around the islands and out into the ocean a little ways. I was SO SICK. I wanted to cry and actually DID on the boat. Luckily the boat was air conditioned but I had a migraine and my stomach was so upset. (I forgot to mention I had a burger for breakfast. It tasted amazing and I think my iron has been WAY too low but at midday my body wanted to give the burger back.) I just was unable to enjoy the boat ride at all. I tried really hard but had really bad blurry vision from my migraine. I took some photos. Back on land I told the girls how awful I felt. I wasn't crying anymore but I felt like it. (I carried my umbrella around all day open shielding me from the sun - I also fanned myself and periodically sprayed myself with water.) I told Amber that I thought my body was trying to get sun stroke. It's like the heat and humidity were compressing every cell in my body trying to cause an implosion. My skin and bones feel so right and pressured (still). I asked Amber for some of her water. I drank it slowly and not TONS but still ended up throwing up about half of what I drank in the bathroom. My cramps were really acting up too. The girls were all excited to site see and I didn't want to ruin anything for them. I went along and just tried not to say anything because it was going to be negative or a complaint because my body was screaming at me. (This is really tough to type - my migraine has been so killer all day.)

We toured some islands and I took one or two pictures to look at later. I wanted so badly to enjoy myself and stop being sick. I said prayer after prayer all day in my heart. I thought at one point I wasn't going to be able to walk anymore since I was so unsteady on my feet and my vision was swimming. I prayed we would run into the missionaries so they could give me a blessing. No such luck. I pressed on and hoped for the best. At one point I got ice cream (though I had to borrow money to buy it) and it helped a lot. It cooled down my insides so my outsides settled for a bit.

As we were walking back to the station to go to Sendai Amber bought some squid. She gave me a little piece. It was decent - a little rubbery for me, but I kept it down! When we got on the train, I ate one of my umeboshi and asked Amber for a little more water. The food tastes ok to me and I kept it down! I wanted to lie down on the train and sleep but that wasn't possible.

When we got to Sendai, we trooped into he city for their festival. We caught the end of a show and then we walked around and got some festival food. The girls have me little tastes of their food which made me really happy - it was not enough to make me sick but enough that my tummy was ok. After we sat on a small wall I ate my other umeboshi and drank my juice. Then disaster: Tara was missing 5000¥ ($50). She went looking and when I heard I went back and asked the shops where we had been with my rudimentary Japanese. One guys de me proud - a teenager who answered me in English. :) However in spite of asking no one had seen it. :( The lady at the last stall was really rude about it. She just stared at me and refused to answer and finally I put it into my translator and she still wouldn't answer so I asked her again and FINALLY she said she hadn't seen it. Sheesh. Our walk back to the station was kinda somber and we were a little disappointed since we had only seen a little stage show and expected a parade. Still, we made it back, waited in a room with a/c and now I'm on the train typing this up on my phone (so sorry for any inadvertent errors).

I finished the post from a few days ago but will put all the pictures on this post. I want to ask all of you to pray for me. The summer in Argentina got to me this way - I wasn't able to eat or drink much an then would throw it up and just kept getting sicker. It's really discouraging for me to be so sick and so far from family too. (Glad to have some friends here but I feel like I'm ruining their vacation.) Love you all and hope you're surviving the summer much better than I am.

XOXO,

A

P.S. I took a cool shower (now that I'm home) thinking it would make me feel SO MUCH BETTER... nope. :( I'm SO sick.