October 20 - Another day at the factory. For dinner I returned alone to one of the small local restaurants that I had enjoyed some days ago. The meal wasn’t quite as good and I started noticing some after affects rather soon this evening.

October 21 – Another day at the factory, but being Saturday I stayed only until 2 o clock or so. One problem with working Saturdays here is that we are already one day ahead of the home office, so if anything comes up we then get two days ahead in order to get correspondence back.

The dinner last evening continued to wreck havoc with my innards all day and so my bum was feeling chafed from so much activity. I spent the afternoon looking for preparation H or a reasonable facsimile. With the language barrier it was interesting trying to get my point across as to what I was searching for. I finally managed to find something, after embarrassing myself in front of two young lady clerks in the pharmacy of a neighborhood supermarket, making some awkward hand signals in the process.

In the evening I finally managed to find the courage to try one of the KTV (karaoke) bars that are so popular over here. The young hostesses were only too happy to see a foreigner come in and they managed to get me to drink more beer in one sitting than I have done in many years. Needless to say it was a big mistake, mainly because my system had not recovered from the trauma of the previous day. Tomorrow is probably going to be a long day.