Allergies - who would have thought?

The last couple of days have been quite a nuisance as I am allergic to something lurking in my house. I went to the school doctor, and he believes that it's dust mites. These are apparently quite common in Macau since it's so humid here & they just looove the humidity. I'm beginning to think that I should live in a bubble for the rest of my life. There isn't much that I can do about these little critters except wash my things again (although this wouldn't get rid of them because we can only wash our things in cold water & you need hot water + a dryer to kill them), or you could use a de-humidifier, or get a vacuum & try to vacuum everything up (which we don't have one). So they next morning I washed all of my things & then went early to school. Because I had washed all of my things, I must have stirred up my new friends & inhaled them all because my eyes got so bad... I left school, I looked like a freak & it stung so bad.

I went back later for a meeting, but it was quite unbearable. They were able to scramble up a de-humidifier for us though, which was great. We then went out for dinner with Ms. Mou, and the entire time I was trying not to scratch my eyeballs out. On the way home, we went over to a Japanese home store to buy some shower curtains so that I could wrap my mattresses in plastic. I also bought a new pillow, and all together it was quite expensive, but I thought that it was going to worth it. Got home, opened up the shower curtain & realized that it was polyester... so that wasn't going to work. Went right back to the store & the lady tells us that we can't get our money back but can exchange for something else (after many confusing gestures & words). There was nothing really that we needed so we ended up buying $70 worth of toilet paper. haha - we are set!!! I went to the grocery store & found some plastic shower curtains, so I bought 2 just in case. & thank goodness I did b/c it took two to cover both of them. Thank goodness for Hong's magical present wrapping skills, I couldn't have done it without her (& I was too busy wanting to pass out/vomit from the pain). Took a couple of Benedryl's & then passed out at 8:30pm.

The doctor told me not to sleep with my comforters b/c they are probably infested & that I should have my A/C on to make the place dryer. So lastnight I had to sleep in my long johns, two hoodies (with the hoods on), wool socks, a toque, and a couple of towels to cover me. I was sooo cold! I woke up about 10 times in the night b/c I was so cold! This morning, two men from the school came to deliver the de-humidifier & some new comforters, a mattress mat, blankets & pillows. We also wanted to show them the awful noise that our toilet makes when you flush it. So we flushed it for them & of course it didn't make the noise right away, so they were probably like what the heck are these girls talking about? But when it finally did make the noise, the man said that in Macau, it's normal. It seriously sounds like the toilet wants to explode & the pipes & faucets shake & everything when it happens. It's kinda freaky.

For our last mission to get rid of these stupid bugs in my room (oh & btw, they are most likely everywhere in our appt, including in our drapes, but Hong isn't allergic to them, so she is fine), there was a whole stack of wooden pieces (for a bed) underneath my bed which were attracting handfuls of dust, so we took them all out & shoved them behind the sofas in the living room. Now I have a beautiful, clean pristine floor underneath my bed! :)

My eyes still look hideous, but I think they're getting better!

We learned some interesting things about cemeteries over dinner lastnight (& keep in mind that were discussing this over dinner!!). Tomorrow is the Ching Ming festival, and this is a time where the Chinese go to visit their ancestors. So we were talking about how Ms. Mou had her ancestors brought across the border to be placed in a cemetery in Coloane (which is a neighbouring island of Macau) instead of across the border in Mainland, because it was just too hard to visit them every year with the hundreds of thousands of people that cross the border during this time (after a certain amount, they actually close the border completely). Throughout this conversation we found out that when you pay to have your family buried, you are only paying for them to be there for 7 years. After the seven years, the body has decomposed enough so all that remains are bones. These bones are put into an urn & then you either rent out or buy a little cupboard inside of these rows & rows of walls in the cemetery. How crazy is that?? (& remember, we were eating while talking about this hahaha). But it makes so much sense. Hong & I were actually wondering & just baffled at where do they fit all of the people that die? There's no space for cemeteries! & now we know how! Another thing that I learned is that if someone has passed away in your family, then you can not visit another person's house or attend a wedding for a certain period of time (I think it was about a month), as it is believed that you would pass on this bad luck to the other families.

Ms. Mou has been so great to us. She helps us with our butchering attempts at Chinese, she always treats us to food, & she is a very good friend to have here. I definitely want to do something for people here before we go - but I just don't know what! Any ideas?