Judy’s trip to the Doctor… This one NON-emergency.

So, today I went and got my second Hep A and B shot. OH WHAT FUN!! I’m actually pretty OK with shots, but this particular one, when I had it the first time was major icky feeling and gave me the oogies. So we went to the clinic in the Galleria as a walk in. They got us in right away. This place is COOL!! Peggy you would LOVE it, the walls were lavender purple in the rooms and pastel yellow hallways. The doors also had a funky diagonal design half window. All together making you feel like you were in a modern high class office building. I had 3 nurses (someone must have warned them about me! :-) plus a doctor checked in to ensure we got the right stuff. Got my shot. She did a FINE job indeed and no oogies this time. We paid our, well, about $30 American dollars. So about half the emergency room cost due to American high cost of drugs. A good and fast experience again.

Yesterday I went out with two of Joel’s co-workers, Marci and Holly, from Ingenix…. Meaning they are both travelers here from Minnesota. It was good to get out and meet some people.

We ate at Monks, a Japanese restaurant that served a lot of rice and noodle bowls. Desert was a very interesting and strange experience. Marci had decided on the Black Rice Pudding. I had decided to try this since it sounded very unique. The waiter came and she pointed on the menu and said she would like the black rice pudding. He pointed to a different item and suggested she get that. She persisted and so did he. We all looked at each other. What’s the scoop we wondered? So, she just asked for the bill and said we would move on. He said something else, but I wasn’t clear if he now would get that for us or what. Very strange.

I’m REALLY excited because Marci has been here since March and has had some clothes made. We plan to go out looking for material and get in to a tailor. YEAH!

Marci has Moses as her driver, one of the lead and most sought after driver here. He speaks very good English and is just very good. WHAT a difference having him, or a more fluent English speaking driver would make. We got in the car after lunch and Marci said to Moses… We want ice cream. Where can we get ice cream. So, he took us to some strip mall type place. There was a store that said Dairy on it. He went up with us and asked in Hindi if they had Ice cream. The person said no. There was a Revlon store… well, it had a big Revlon sign over the door. Holly wanted nail polish remover so we stopped there. Moses asked if they had ice cream treats, and THEY DID! At the Revlon store. Well, OK. They also had many shampoos and stuff. There were no lights inside so I didn’t see fully what they had. The other interesting thing about this place was that the door, A. would hardly Open wide enough for us to squeeze through, and it was shelves so you could see the various shampoos from outside, and the shop was small so good use for storage as well.

Our driver is very limited on his English and sometimes things get confused because a mall is known by a few things, and using the stores inside are not good references. First of all, if they are in uniform they are not able to go in. And most of the drivers do not go to the malls when they are out of uniform for shopping. A good incentive to learn Hindi. It may or may not help get me to a particular mall, but it would help some of the broader needs.