{"id":10817,"date":"2023-11-09T04:35:01","date_gmt":"2023-11-09T12:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=10817"},"modified":"2023-11-09T04:35:01","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T12:35:01","slug":"japan-2023-day-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=10817","title":{"rendered":"Japan 2023: Day 8"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As you\u2019d expect, I didn\u2019t get much done today, but then again, I got a lot done. My leg still hurt. A lot. And the massage therapist I see in Portland suggested I find someone who does deep tissue massage or a chiropractor. Do you know how few rolfers I found in Japan? I called 10 within 200 miles and I got no answers at all.<\/p>\n<p>But first I ate some breakfast. I realized I\u2019ve been at a Comfort Hotel before in Kochi. They\u2019re really not my favorite, but there was a lot for breakfast. I ate more than yesterday because I think things are starting to loosen up a bit. I still didn\u2019t eat a lot. Oh, and if you\u2019re a fan of cereal, Comfort Hotel has it. I did not find white rice, however.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"IMG_0218.png\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_0218.png\" alt=\"IMG 0218\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I rode a bunch of short hops to Shimonoseki. One stop to the Shinkanen, two stops on the Shinkansen to Kokura, and then a couple stops on the local to Shimonoseki. I crammed myself onto the crowded Shinkansen because I was pretty sure the guy next to me was getting off way after I was.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"IMG_0219.png\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_0219.png\" alt=\"IMG 0219\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The area around the train station looks big but the restaurants aren\u2019t open very late. There\u2019s a Daimaru department store and some other stores there. The weird part is how many stairs you need to use to get across the streets. I dropped off my suitcase at the Via Hotel (which looked up even though there are stairs to get in) and headed out.<\/p>\n<p>I went to make train reservations for my weird trip tomorrow which includes a stop to see my cousin and then backtracking and heading to another small town. But the ticket office is closed from 11am to 3pm and so I went to the tourist information bureau. They were staffed by someone who sounded possibly Korean. She basically pointed out some areas and a tower to see over the town. Instead of heading to the tower, I asked google about chiropractors and saw two not very far away.<\/p>\n<p>The first one was closed. The second one looked an awful lot like someone\u2019s house and the name made me think it was a chiropractic association and not a practitioner. I knocked and was let into a room that looked like a warehouse for kids toys (I guess like a house with small children) with an older looking exam room. The chiropractor told me he wasn\u2019t really open but he\u2019d see me. He told me he took himself off of Google and sure enough, I can\u2019t find it any longer.<\/p>\n<p>He was GREAT. Took two hours realigning me and while things still hurt, they were bearable. And I got some advice about tensing my lower abs before exerting myself. I guess he had a clinic in Tokyo and his late father had a clinic here and now he\u2019s back home to look after his mother and eventually open up the clinic. He still has patients in Tokyo and he goes back and forth. Also, this is mostly guesses from what he told me, the doctors are so powerful in Japan that chiropractic is about to go away here and a lot of the people who put it on signs haven\u2019t even studied it. Because of the medical lobby, it\u2019s medicine or nothing here. He agreed with my assessment that acupuncture is for immediate but not long-term relief. Also, he\u2019d taken night classes in osteopathic manipulation from a real DO. He said chiropractic manipulation is good while you\u2019re younger, but osteopathic manipulation is better when you\u2019re older.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, two hours of body manipulation and the guy was getting sweaty. I do feel better and while things still hurt, they feel like they\u2019re getting better.<\/p>\n<p>I found a taxi to take me to the tower and called today a success.<\/p>\n<p>I saw a lot of south Asians on the way to the chiropractic clinic, and when I went to dinner it seemed like there were a lot of SE Asians working there. I had a hard time understanding some of them. I ordered one of the local specialties (I thought I ordered two things and a salad) and after that I ordered the 8 piece yakiniku set. I felt bad because I wasn\u2019t drinking, so I got out of there after that.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"IMG_0222.png\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_0222.png\" alt=\"IMG 0222\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I still was a little hungry so I bought a rice ball and too much dessert at 7Eleven. I\u2019m no TabiEats.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"IMG_0223.png\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_0223.png\" alt=\"IMG 0223\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>After that it was time to take a bath in the big basement bath. I guess there\u2019s a middle school trip staying here and luckily they weren\u2019t down there. Just a weird dude who didn\u2019t quite seem Japanese and a grandfather with his screaming preschool-aged grandson.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s it for today. Lots of traveling tomorrow and lots more ibuprofen, I\u2019m sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you\u2019d expect, I didn\u2019t get much done today, but then again, I got a lot done. My leg still hurt. A lot. And the massage therapist I see in Portland suggested I find someone who does deep tissue massage or a chiropractor. Do you know how few rolfers I found in Japan? I called 10 within 200 miles and I got no answers at all. But first I ate some breakfast. I realized I\u2019ve been at a Comfort Hotel before in Kochi. They\u2019re really not my favorite, but there was a lot for breakfast. I ate more than yesterday because I think things are starting to loosen up a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=10817\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Japan 2023: Day 8<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10818,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10817\/revisions\/10818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}