Thus ended our short trip to Japan.
While the rest of our tour members went on to Mount Fuji, Ginza, Shinjuku and Tokyo Disneyland, we reached the comfort of Malaysia and the comfort of our home (like my daughter said "I missed my room so much. Hospitals make me so depressed"). I also felt a great relief to come home to my beautiful apartment where birds greet me with chirping and singing in the morning and my living room looks out to a small park.
Some lessons learnt:
1. If you have fever before you travel, see the doctor and bring your medication.
2. Bring lots of cash with you so that you would not need to borrow from your tour mates. Traveling in countries like Japan where credit cards were not accepted, extra cash is always an advantage.
3. Do not be afraid to see the local doctor if need be. Always follow the advice of your tour leader as they would have had experience dealing with the sick on tour.
4. Make sure that you carry a post-paid phone with roaming. Our flight tickets back to KL were booked on-line using the mobile phone. Booking was done way past midnight while in the hotel reception area. As the tickets were paid by credit card, the TAC was needed. If my phone was on a pre-paid ticket where the TAC was not available.....(Ben said that even he could not help me then)
5. It is better to fly home immediately even it means spending money to buy two tickets back home. Life is more important than sight-seeing. Japan will always be there but we only have one life. To spend money buying tickets home could turn out cheaper than paying for hospital charges in a foreign country. In this case we were told that Japanese doctors were extremely cautious with their diagnosis and could take some time to give us the blood test result. Unlike Malaysian doctors who have experience dealing with dengue, Japanese doctors have none.
6. Don't blame anyone or anything for what happened. Do not even blame yourself. It is pointless. What has happened has happened. We should always focus on solving the problem rather than engage in a blaming and pointing the finger exercise.
7. PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!
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