Hi everyone! This is now the end of the 5th day in Japan and like I mentioned in my previous entry, we have been busy! We have started the Pharmacy-centric material and have had 3 lectures so far at the Kobe Gakuin University. The start of our school material has given us all a little break from the hustle and bustle of sightseeing. Our step counter has been a little less than the first part of the trip, but it has still been eventful.
First, I have to talk about the highlight of these past three days, Osaka and the Pokémon Center. Pokémon was a huge deal for me growing up. I loved the video games and the trading cards and still play the games and collect the cards to this day. So when we entered the Pokémon Center it was like the little kid inside me woke up and took me over. I had to see everything! They had authentic Japanese trading cards, Japan-exclusive video games, plushies, accessories, trinkets, tourist items, clothing, anything you could imagine they had. They even had a huge area off to the side with about 20 tables made specifically for trading card game battles. It was awesome! I could have spent all my money at that store, and very well almost did. That was my most expensive stop to date, with $60 spent on a plushy, a video game and a keychain. It was well spent, because I’ll probsbly never be back there again. The Pokémon center was totally worth the work it took to get to Japan.
After the Pokémon center we met up with students from Osaka University and tried a food called okonomiyaki, which is essentially a pancake with rice/noodles, meat and egg instead of pancake batter. It was delicious! We tried like 4-5 kinds of okonomiyaki, some with chicken, some with pork and some with seafood. After that we visited Osaka Castle, which was a huge castle that was rebuilt after it was destroyed in World War II. It was kind of sobering, because it was US air raids that destroyed it. It was a magnificent castle, with an awesome view of Osaka from the top. We also saw Himegi Castle, which was an original castle that was preserved, so preserved in fact that we had to take our shoes off to go in. After Himeji Castle we went to a really nice Sake bar and did a Sake tasting of about 10 different Sakes. I never knew how complicated Sake actually was! They’re so many different kinds and each kind can either be a dry Sake or a sweet one. They have a numeric scale that is used to judge if it is a dry or sweet one. By the end we all had a favorite and bought a bottle or two. We also had a little too much, but it’s vacation!
The next two days saw our first lectures at KGU, where we learned a little bit about the Pharmacy school curriculum and their technique when it comes to physical assessments of patients. The key differences between the US and Japan is that they start their Pharmacy program right out of high school and go for 6 years. The prerequisites that are required in the US (at least two years of undergraduate work) are part of their 6 year program. What was surprising was how similar our programs actually are. Most of our classes are the same, even down to the computer programs we use when taking the class. Students in Japan though have to learn about counting and filling prescriptions because Japan does not have Pharmacy Technicians like the US does.
The other major difference is the focus Japan has on herbal medicine compared to the US. In Japanese Pharmacy school, the students have to learn both the western style of medicine (diagnosis then treatment with medications) and the herbal style of medicine (Kampo).. They have to learn the major herbs, what they do, how to prepare the mixtures and how to diagnose using this style. I won’t get into the messy details of it, but essentially the Kampo style works by keeping the body in balance. If the body is out of balance, then something is wrong. We learned and even got to make and try Kakkon-to, which is the most common recipe for an early cold or stiff muscles. The recipes to make Kakkon-to are different based on how out of balance the patient is. They take into account the whole body and it’s symptoms instead of just local symptoms like western medicine. It’s a very different style of medicine that I do not fully understand. I probably didn’t even explain it correctly. Anyway, after learning about that we visited a herbal pharmacy and got to see first hand how they created their herbal remedies and dispensed them. It was quite an interesting experience.
Tomorrow we have two more lectures about the Japanese system and a more in depth look at their curriculum. I am very interested in how Japan’s healthcare works and how it im differs from the US, so tomorrow will be an interesting lecture. That’s it from me! Thanks for reading!
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