The Adventures Continue!

Day 4 (Tuesday the 9th)
We had lectures from Kume-Sensei and Yuan-Sensei over dyslipidemia (high cholesterol issues) and the Japanese pharmacy curriculum respectively. High cholesterol is a growing problem in Japan due to an increased number of fast food restaurants. This was surprising to many of us due to all the variety of restaurants that we see. Nonetheless, the Western culture seems to be rubbing off on Japan. The pharmacy curriculum is very different here than from the U.S. It is a 6 year program but one that starts right after high school. So technically we have more schooling, but to me it would be more difficult to decide a career right out of high school rather than having a few years of college to figure out a career path. We had lunch at the university and afterwards got to visit both a community pharmacy and hospital pharmacy. The community pharmacists in Japan are allowed to fill a maximum of 40 scripts per day. They deal with a lot of nursing home patients and those residents in the particular area. The hospital we visited had 50 pharmacists working along with 6 assistants. Pharmacy students are not allowed to work as interns and technicians do not exist. Instead they have assistants, who actually require no formal education. The operation behind the scenes at the hospital was very sophisticated. Every pharmacist was very busy. Even more so than in the U.S., these pharmacists seemed to be over-trained and under-valued. At night we joined the Kobe Gakuin students for a takoyaki party (octopus/egg balls I described previously). We actually made takoyaki with hot dogs and chocolate inside too. All were delicious. It was a very fun party as we got to dress up in yukata (traditional Japanese dress) while eating the takoyaki. We capped off the night by lighting out own fireworks off under the Kobe bridge. It was quite a site to see the bridge lit up at night.

Day 5 (Wednesday the 10th)
Akaho-Sensei lectured us over the healthcare system in Japan while Kamiya-Sensei spoke to us about kampo pharmacy. Japan has a government run healthcare system that Akaho-Sensei stressed as very affordable but very high quality. We learned that pharmacists make over the average salary in Japan, but is only around $50,000 US (less for hospital pharmacists). Pilots actually make more money than doctors in Japan! We had the opportunity to make kakkon-to, an herbal medicine used to treat many maladies. In the afternoon, we actually got to go to a kampo pharmacy in Nishinomiya and see how a kampo pharmacy actually functions. We got to try some different medicines, which did not taste very good! However, it was cool to see the process behind the making of herbal medicines. At night we ventured to Harbortown, the area in Kobe with the ferris wheel and Port Tower. The group I was with rode the ferris wheel and hung out around Harbortown before heading back to the hotel. For dinner we actually mixed it up and enjoyed some pizza and wine, Italian style from the Japanese.

Day 6 (Thursday the 11th)
Today we went to Arima by train to visit the onsen, or hot springs. This was a very cool experience figuratively. In reality the hot springs were 107 and 111 degrees Fahrenheit respectively. Afterwards I felt refreshed as we walked around Arima visiting shops. I did have to regain my electrolytes using the Japanese version of Gatorade, Pocari Sweat. We hung out for awhile shopping in Sannomiya before having dinner at a Kobe beef restaurant there. Although very expensive the food and experience was great. The chef at our small group's teppanyaki grill was named Khanh. He was Vietnamese and knew English really well. We may have gotten him in trouble due to being loud, obnoxious Americans. Nonetheless, he really liked us and cooked up some amazingly juicy Kobe beef. Jason and I separated the group thereafter and joined our Pen Pals, Terumi and Kyoichi. They drove us up the mountain (took about 40 minutes to drive up there) to see a beautiful night view of the city. There were hundreds of people up there and it was very peaceful. Despite us not knowing Japanese, Terumi and Kyoichi were able to communicate very well with us. It was fun getting to know them both better. Currently, I'm exhausted after 6 days of Japan. I can't believe the trip is almost over. I am trying to make the most of our next 3 full days here!