A Minor Mishap

So before I post a whole series of photos from Tokyo, Himeji, Hakata, Busan and Seoul, to name most if not all of the places I've been in the last little while, I should explain about the cut eagle eyes will spy on my cheek.

Put quite simply: I had another one of my unfortunate accidents. In this instance, the accident involved myself, my bike, a wall, and a few pints of vodka. I was riding home after a night out (the first set of pictures you'll see here) in Himeji, a little get-together before we all went our separate ways for Christmas. As with the episode bike+mez versus ditch, I think I must have forgotten that I was in fact in charge of the trajectory, ie, the direction of the bike. I just forgot for an instant, that's all it took. Next thing I knew, I turned briefly to say something to Stu, and the side of my face slammed into the side of a house (having first pitched into yet another blasted ditch). Ooh, I can still feel the smack of my head agaist that damn wall. Probably the most painful accident to date. Stu was just amazed, as you can imagine, he didn't know whether to laugh or not (it must have looked quite comical I dare say). However, when he saw my face, blood pouring out of a fairly large gash, I guess it no longer looked so funny. I lost my cool and had a few quiet tears (read: bawled like a baby). Stu was still in his work clothes, nevertheless, he decided the absolute cleverest thing to do would be to take off his work shirt (in the freezing cold) and wipe off the blood with it, the only work shirt of his I like. The blood washed out surprisingly easily. Not so my face. By the time we got home it was already 3am, the next hour or so consisted of showering and then enduring the frightful event of a hot needle poking around in the gash in order to remove, what I now believe to be fictitious, rocks, pebbles, boulders, etc. Stu kept insisting they were stuck in there, I kept wailing that I just wanted to go to bed.

Needless to say, the next day was a sick day. I could hardly go to work in the state I (my face) was in. I was swollen, bruised, still bleeding, with a headache that went far beyond your run-of-the-mill hangover. Lauren and Jeff next door were so sweet, they went out, unasked, and picked up a host of medical supplies for me. I then spent the rest of the day hanging out with them, which was lovely, aside from the pounding in my head. The next day, Stu and I headed of to Hakata on the first leg of our Korean adventure...