This post is from 6 December 2008
Last week I was suffering from serious hay fever - I had only brought a few tablets with me and they were long gone. So, before going sightseeing for the day we tried to find a pharmacist near the hotel, with limited luck we could only find a doctor's surgery. I had forgotten my phone with the translation software so were were restricted to the Point and Speak book.
I managed to explain to the receptionists / nurses that I had an allergy and my nose was running (that part didn't really need explanation as I was a bit of a mess) and I was looking for a pharmacist. They really didn't want to talk to me in English, so there was lots of scurrying about and I filled in a long and complicated form with just my name and birthdate. After a bit of a wait their hastily elected representative (who could speak very good English when I was really not getting the Japanese) ushered me into another room to talk to a doctor. The elderly doctor was very nice and asked me a few questions in very formal textbook English, but they were all based around having a cold or flu - so I tried to explain that it was an allergy a few more times and just wanted to by antihistamines. In the end he prescribed me something for an upper respiratory tract infection that he promised would deal with the allergy too.
After paying for the consultation (¥3,000) I went next door to the attached mini-pharmacy that supposedly doesn't sell anything without a prescription with my scrip in hand and got the medicine (¥1,000). ¥4,000 isn't too bad for a doctor's visit and some medicine. It was certainly worth the money just for the interesting experience - but wasn't very effective at stopping me from sneezing!
Once I had the phone to translate "antihistamine" it was a simple case of finding a normal pharmacy and showing them the phone. He mimed sneezing or scratching, I confirmed sneezing and that I wanted pills to eat. He got me a cute little glass jar of pills to take - just ¥890 for 55 tablets.
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