When you are sick (Jee In Chung)

Coming to a new country where everything is completely new and different, things can get quite difficult at times, especially when you aren't feeling good and may feel sick. Because of difficult kanji, it's even difficult to understand the labels on medication boxes. Although you should really have some back-up emergency medication with you from your home country at all times, I will recommend the best-selling drugs in Japan for common sickness such as stomaches, muscle pain, headaches, bug bites and so on.

The first that I will introduce is [大証 Hanban] which works for digestive stomach medicine. You do not need prescription for this medicine. This medicine is also good for sour stomach and for hangovers. It is known to have no side effects because it's composed of different types of herbs such as ginger and Cinnamomum cassia Blume. [Otawisan] is also well-known to cure such illness. A lot of the times, it is preserved in a small can so you can scoop up as much as you think you would need according to its symptoms.

It can get pretty cold in the winter in Japan so you can easily see many people wearing white mouth masks. These masks are sold at any convenience store for couple hundred yen. If you feel that you have early symptoms of cold, I would recommend [sekidome sekin] which immediately gets rid of mucus in your system. It will heal your swollen throat and it's good for coughs and pain.

In the summer, Japanese mosquitoes are the scariest things you would want to stay away from but unfortunately, they are not avoidable. It's important not to irritate by itching it. If you planning to go on a camp during the summer, make sure you take [Ekutai muhi S]. It only works for other bug bites as well, not just the mosquitoes. You will feel the comfort feeling of coolness on your skin immediately as you apply it on your skin. When you have muscle aches on your legs or shoulder after camping, it would be a good idea to apply [saromechil FB loshon]. This comes in two types of forms. It comes in tape wrapping form and the second in gel type.

Although medication may not be your concern at the time being, it is important to have them ready at all times. However, these medications recommended above are all non-prescription medications. If you have severe symptoms of sickness, it would be best to go and see a doctor with your alien registration and national healthcare card.

Kusuri (Jee In Chung)

I remember my first time at a supermarket looking for a hair conditioner but no matter, how hard I looked, I couldn't find the Body Soap section. With my poor Japanese skills, I decided to ask the clerk where it was. After saying the word "conditioner" five times, the clerk still didn't seem to get what I was saying. It was only later when she was trying to tell me that I should go to a pharmacy ("KUSURI") to look for the hair conditioner. That was when I realized that Japan had a different concept of supermarket than the ones in Korea.

In Korea, what we call a supermarket has from food to bathroom wares. But at drug stores, only drugs are sold. So it's possible to do any type of shopping, either grocery or household, at supermarket. However, in Japan it's different. While supermarket only contains products related to food, kusuri carries from medicine to cosmetic products. I’ve seen this type of system in America and Canada but seeing Japan as an Asian country I automatically assumed that it would have a system similar to the one in Korea.

Kusuri is rather a fun place to go once in a while because of the variety of goods they have in the stores. The stores are extremely well-organized. Every time I go, I check out their make-up section because Japanese make-up products tend me work better on Asian skin as opposed to other European or American brands. There are more than thirty brands and each of them have a tester and a catalog for the customers to read. The bestseller is marked with a sticker of a crown and you will not regret trying out one of those. Because most of them are written in Kanji and very little English, I tend to look for the ones with the crown sticker. The price is reasonable and the products are in quite good quality. For example, cosmetic companies such as Shiseido or Shu Uemura are internationally well-known and its cost is quite high. So Shiseido have created many smaller branches like Shiseido maquillage which targets young ladies with lower price but still fairly good quality. Because people know which brands are under Shiseido, they feel the cosmetic products are more likely to be reliable and trustworthy.

Another section I was surprised to see was the vitamin drink section which is composed of more than 30 different company brands. I used to intake Redbull every time I was trying to pull an all-nighter but the use for these drinks are many. Some drink them before going to nomikai or nomihodai to prevent from getting a headache the next day; others drink them to get an energy booster throughout a tough day. I tried out some of these drinks thinking that they would taste like medicine but they tasted delicious and they actually worked on me. As you are probably already aware, Japanese people love drinking at Izakayas so I would definitely recommend you to take one of these drinks before going to a nomikai (drinking event).