Bonus episode #168 – Sick as a dog

Hello and welcome to bonus 168. How's it going? Thank you for clicking play and joining me for this episode. I hope you're doing okay. My name is Andrew. I'll be your humble host and study buddy. For today and what I do here in our bonus series. is I tell you some stories from my everyday life. I'm a Canadian who lives abroad in Seoul, South Korea.

And I hope that by listening to my stories, you will be able to build your fluency, increase your confidence, grow your vocabulary, and to become a better and clearer communicator. So if those are some of your goals, then you're in the right place. And I have to start off this story with an apology because last week I promised that I was gonna tell you about my recent trip to Canada. But actually I got super sick and I lost my voice completely. I couldn't even talk and so

recording a story and uploading it was just out of the question. It was impossible. So maybe you can still hear in my voice a little bit. I'm not quite over my sickness yet, but yeah, my voice has returned. Thank God because you know as a podcaster and a teacher, my voice is my moneymaker. So I really need my voice. And yeah, it's it's back. So I'm happy about that.

And what I'm gonna do instead of telling you some stories about my recent trip to Canada is actually tell you about getting sick because it's in my mind, it dominated my life over the last week. And so guys, I'll I'll save the Canada stories for the next week. And here I'm just gonna tell you a quick shorter version of kind of getting sick and recovering because it is a little bit of an interesting story. And like I said, it's been been dominating my life over the last week.

And just before I get to the story, don't forget to grab the interactive transcript and vocabulary glossary for this episode. Amazing study tools, if I do say so myself. and they're available for free for everyone. Just check out the links in the description. Plus if you're a Clips member, then you also get a comprehension quiz and you'll be able to

Do the quiz after you listen to the episode to see how much you were able to understand. So if you are a member, then take the quiz after you finish listening. And if you're not a member and you'd like to sign up and support Qlips and also get some amazing, awesome tools. To support your English learning as well, then just visit our website, qlips.com. You can see all the details and sign up for an affordable price.

Hi everyone, I have a quick question for you. Do you ever feel confused about using the English words make and do? A lot of English learners find these two verbs tricky. But if you want to feel more confident using them, join our next challenge. We'll be practicing common expressions with make and do. The challenge is happening on our Discord server and is completely free to join.

Every other day you'll get a small task, and once you complete all the tasks, you'll get a completion certificate. I hope to see you all there. Bye for now. So with that being said, let me jump into my story for this week. And if you're a regular listener of Qlips, you'll probably know what's been going on in my life a little bit, but I'll just catch you up quickly.

So I spent a week in Canada. That was about three weeks ago now. And then I came back from Canada and I came back here to Seoul, where I live in South Korea. And I spent a week in Seoul. And then after spending a week in Seoul, then my wife and I went to Japan. We went to Fukuoka, Japan, and we spent four days in Fukuoka. And then after that my wife went home first back to Korea

Whereas I continued on traveling in Japan. I flew to Tokyo and then I spent two days in Tokyo. One day I watched a concert. One of my favorite bands of all time is called My Bloody Valentine. Shoe gaze band from Ireland who really, really don't release albums very often or play concerts very often and they're getting up there in age.

So I thought I really need to take advantage of this opportunity that they're playing kinda close to me. I mean, I guess Tokyo is kind of closer than Ireland for me to travel to from Seoul, right? So they're kind of in Asia, in the vicinity. So I wanted to take advantage of that opportunity, go to Tokyo, see the concert.

And then the next night after the concert, I had a meetup with Qlips listeners, which was also amazing. A huge thank you to all of the QLIPS listeners in Tokyo that came out to the meetup. It was awesome. We had a great turnout. And it was just so so cool to get to meet everyone. And I'll talk more about the meetup maybe in a in a little bit, but I want to focus on being sick and recovering here.

Okay, so that gets us up to date. All right. I was in Canada, back to Korea, and then in Japan for for those six days.

So the time in Fukuoka with my wife was really awesome. We did lots of things and I'll talk about that in in more detail maybe in the future as well. But I felt really great that whole time we were in Fukuoka. and then my wife went back to Korea. I went on to Tokyo and I arrived in Tokyo, no problem. Took the airport train to my hotel, checked into my hotel, kind of got settled and then I had to pretty much immediately go to the concert.

The concert was absolutely incredible. I really enjoyed it. And actually a few funny things happened at the concert as well. So I have more stories to tell you about this. Just wait for upcoming episodes. We'll get into all the details, but just to keep things on the short side for now, I enjoyed the concert and then I went back to my hotel after the concert was finished, maybe 10, 10.30 at night by the time I arrived.

And when I arrived, I felt suddenly really quite tired, really quite tired and just almost exhausted, which was weird. Because I didn't really do too much that day, of course. You know, travel days are always a little bit exhausting, but the flight from Fukuoka to Tokyo is pretty short.

And there's not too much transportation between airports as well. And it wasn't an international flight. It was just a domestic flight within Japan. So I didn't have to go through customs or immigration or any of that rigmarole. That's a good word to add to your vocabulary if you don't know it. Rigamarole. Rigamarole is just like, you know, all the official business that you have to do.

Think about an airport situation, going through security, going through customs, going through immigration, right? It's annoying and it's just these Yeah, annoying tasks that you have to do. We could call that rigma roll. So I didn't have to go through the rigmarole of, you know, getting my passport checked, going through immigration, because I was already in Japan. So it wasn't

a heavy travel day. It was just a light travel day. So I was a little surprised why I felt so exhausted. I think I just got back to my hotel, took a quick shower, and went to sleep. And I woke up in the middle of the night after falling asleep and I just didn't feel so good. I had some chills. I had a really bad headache. I had an extremely sore throat. And I was like, oh my gosh, what's happening? Why am I getting sick? And why is this the worst timing ever?

I had the Tokyo Culebs meetup planned the next day. I was really excited about it, and I thought this is gonna just be terrible if I'm sick. And so in in the middle of the night, there's not much you can do, right? I just tried to get back to sleep, get some rest, but definitely I felt like I was coming down with something in that moment.

So I got some rest. The next day I actually had plans to meet up with a Clips listener in Tokyo for some lunch. But I contacted him and said, You know what, I'm so sorry, but I don't think I should meet you because I'm not feeling so great. I need to rest and maybe go to the pharmacy, get some medicine, and just try and save all of my energy for the meetup that night.

And so unfortunately I had to cancel those plans. I did go to the pharmacy and I got some medicine. A shout out to the staff in the pharmacy in Japan. because I went to the pharmacy and I was just sort of looking at all of the medicine, trying to find maybe some Tylenol or some Tylenol colds, something that I could take that would relieve my headache and help my sore throat. And so I was just looking at the medicine and I had a very, very extremely sore throat at that time.

And so even talking was difficult. And I was like, oh, I'm gonna have to talk with this pharmacist and maybe use ChatGPT to interpret for me or something like this. But the pharmacist, notice that I guess I was looking pretty confused because I can't read Japanese so all the medicine is in a different language. And I was just looking for like a Tylenol logo, something that I could recognize, right? Anyways, he came over to me and spoke in English to me really well.

uh can I help you? What are you looking for? What are your symptoms? And so he hooked me up with some Japanese medicine that he recommended. I didn't know the brand, but he said this is best for sore throat and headache. And so he gave me that medicine. I took the medicine and guys it was a miracle because suddenly I started to feel way better and I felt like, okay, I can do it. I can do the meetup. At first I wasn't so sure. I was really on the fence thinking, do I need to cancel the meetup?

Which I really, really didn't want to do. We had over 55 people in total RSVP for the meetup. So I knew it was going to be. uh a big meetup with lots of people and also I knew some people were traveling from out of town who didn't live in Tokyo to come in for the meetup. Some people even got hotels to stay in and were traveling for it. So

Uh again, a huge thank you for all the people who came to the meetup, whether you traveled from near or far. I really, really appreciate it. It was so cool to meet up with you. But I knew that, right? So I didn't want to cancel. Like how terrible would that be? So uh of course I felt like It doesn't matter how sick I am. I gotta I gotta do the meetup. But thanks to that medicine I felt way better.

And I was able to go to the meetup and yeah, I wasn't a hundred percent. My voice wasn't so strong at that time and I did have a sore throat and not feel great for most of the meetup, but thanks to the medicine, I I was able to get it done and When all was said and done. It was a great time.

So after the meetup, I went back to my hotel again and yeah, I I was just run down. I had no energy. I felt like oh. At this point, all I want to do is get on the plane and get back to Seoul so I can go see the doctor in Korea and get some real medicine, maybe a prescription to help me. Get better and get over whatever it was. I didn't know if it was a flu or a cold or what, but yeah, I was just run down. And to be honest.

The next day I had to fly to Seoul, right? Usually in that kind of situation, I will always, always, always pack my bag, get all my things ready. I'll be super organized and ready to go so I can just wake up. check out of my hotel and get to the airport. But I was so run down, I had no energy at all. I couldn't even pack my suitcase or pack my bag. I pretty much just flopped into bed.

And went to sleep. Now I woke up in the middle of the night again. And at this point, I was sick as a dog, just very, very sick. So I felt awful. I had a headache. I again had chills and my throat was so sore, guys. It was like I don't want to say a 10 out of 10 pain because There's probably more intense pain, but Can we say nine out of ten? I don't know. Maybe nine out of ten. It felt like from ear to ear the pain was.

all across my throat from one ear to the other ear and into my ears and it was just miserable. I couldn't swallow, I couldn't drink water, I couldn't sleep. I would sleep for like five minutes, ten minutes, and then I'd be woken up by the pain again. So it was just miserable. An extremely, extremely sore throat and no voice at all. I couldn't even try like if I tried to talk, nothing was coming out at all. So that was a terrible night. That was a really long, bad night.

But I woke up in the morning and I have to give a shout out. I'm so sorry, I forget your name, but one of the listeners who came to the Clips meetup. actually gave me some milk as a gift, a little chocolate and strawberry milk with protein, and just said, Andrew, take these, enjoy them, some Japanese milk. So Yeah, I woke up the next morning and my throat was so sore, but that milk was warm at that point because I didn't put it in the refrigerator just when I came home to my hotel. I just

sort of put everything on the floor and went to bed. And so I woke up in the morning and and was getting ready and I saw the milk and drank it and it was like the perfect thing that I needed at that time. That warm, not cold milk, and I don't know, just the creaminess of the milk or something.

really helped to coat my throat and suddenly I felt a little bit of relief. So thank you so much to the person who gave me the milk. That was super, super helpful. And also because I couldn't eat the protein in the milk was perfect as well. It was like A miracle gift. So thank you so much for that. So yeah, I drank the chocolate milk and the strawberry milk back to and then got ready and packed my bags for I knew it was gonna be just a terrible, long, very unpleasant travel day.

Because I had to check out of my hotel and then take a subway to the airport. That was about an hour and a half from my hotel to the airport. And then you gotta go through all the rigmarole at the airport, check in, and I had to go through security, wait for my flight, waiting in line, all while feeling really, really terrible, and it wasn't.

time to fly to Seoul. It's about yeah, two an hour, two and a half hour flight from Seoul to Tokyo. And I was able to get a little rest on the flight, which was nice, but still didn't feel very good. And then I arrived in Seoul and then rigmarole at the airport again, right? Clearing immigration, waiting for my bag. And of course, my bag was the very last one on the baggage carousel. Just my luck.

I I honestly thought my bag was maybe lost and I would have to go and talk to the airline staff, which I was just dreading'cause I had no voice. I was feeling so bad. I'm like, oh, now do I have to go and figure out where my bag went, like why isn't it here? And then just at the last moment. It came onto the conveyor belts and okay, good. my bags here. So then I had to take the subway back to my home

which is another about hour and a half from the Inchon airport to where I live. So it was just a long travel day. And then I finally got home and my wife had to work late that day, so she wasn't able to be home at that moment, so I had to take our dog for a walk, which I Yeah, it was great to be reunited with my dog Owa again, but yeah, so tired that that was just like one extra thing I had to do. And then finally I just crashed and I slept.

It was evening by this point. I actually couldn't go to the doctor's office because the clinics were closed for the day, so I had to wait for the next day and again Just a terrible, terrible night. I must have woken up every hour just in agony. I couldn't imagine a a throat being more sore, really. And I don't know why it was so sore, but it was just a really bad night.

And finally I made it to the morning. I woke up the next morning and went directly to the clinic and explained my symptoms to the doctor and said, Doc, this is not just a regular cold. So the doc did some tests and he's like it's not COVID, it's not the flu, so it's negative on those. two things, thank God, but it was just a bad cold, apparently, that I had come down with. And so the doctor gave me this

I I call it the Korean butt shot. The miracle butt shot, because I've never had these in Canada before, ever in my life, but here in Korea, when you catch a cold or You know, you get sick. One of the common cures for this is a shot that they give you in your butt. So it's always very funny to me. The doctor will say, Uh, go into the room with the nurse and the nurse will give you the shot in the butt

You gotta pull your pants down a little bit for the nurse to give you this injection in your butt cheek. So that's always really hilarious to me. But Guys, this shot is a miracle. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's a steroid shot or something, but it always just does the trick for me. And you can go from feeling terrible to feeling as good as new in five minutes. It's it's Insane. So yeah, whenever the doctor asks me, Do you want this butt shot? I'm always like, Yeah.

Please. So yeah, after getting that shot. I felt really good. My voice was still not there. And it's slowly coming back. I think it's almost back to normal, but yeah, not quite 100% yet. But almost there. And he gave me some other drugs and medicine as well. And I'm feeling like ninety percent back to usual and I should be good to go by next week. Thankfully the timing was really good to get sick, kind of, because we have here in Korea the solar holiday, which is the lunar new year.

As far as I know, I believe China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Koreas, North Korea, South Korea, and Mongolia all celebrate the Lunar New Year, so shout out to our listeners in those places. Happy Lunar New Year to you all. I don't know if we have any listeners in North Korea, but on the off chance that we do

Happy New Year. So everyone, thank you for listening all the way to the end of my story. The good news is I'm feeling better and I'll be able to continue with our regular bonus episodes going forward. But for today, I think I should wrap things up here. I guess next week I'll tell you about my time in Canada and then after that I'll talk about some of the adventures that I got up to in Japan, especially in Fukuoka with my wife, because it was

An amazing time and yeah, I had an absolute blast. So I'll tell you all about that in the next couple of weeks. But for now, I'll wrap things up. Please take care, don't catch a cold, and I'll talk to you next time.