Apologies to anyone who has been checking in regularly hoping to catch a glimpse of my uncle and aunty... they arrived safetly on Tuesday night and have been enjoying the peacefulness of the countryside after a couple of days in the frantic city of Taipei.It was their first full day here yesterday and although we had a pleasant day wandering around here, up to the big stone buddhas (I was assured that this was their best angle as I tried to take their photo....) and to a supermarket the day took a bit of a terrible turn at dinner time.... the weather is still really warm here and therefore eating outside is still the preferred thing. Last night it was tempura - lots of vegetables deep fried in very hot oil - very nice usually! However this turned to disaster last night when my children managed to tip the very hot oil over themselves..... no one actually saw the incident (I have no idea how it happened) despite the fact we were all sitting around the table next to the oil. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and of course there are many things that I can say now that we should have done differently to prevent this terrible thing happening, but on the positive side I can also say the following. Japanese bathrooms are well designed for dealing with burns. As soon as the accident happened I rushed both children into the bathroom and just ran the hand-held shower all over them - the bathrooms are designed so that water can be thrown all over the bathroom - they are completely tiled and therefore there is no worries about where you aim the water. They also have the shower beside the bath so one child can get into the bath and run water on their foot (my daughter) and the other can keep screaming while their mother (me) runs water all over their head and arm (my son). Because the accident happened in the dark outside and because after the water was run on the children it was hard to tell exactly how much damage had been done we all had images of my son being admitted to hospital and not being able to move for weeks etc. However, luck really was on our side in many ways apart from the design of the bathroom.
For starters the burn to his head was all above the hairline, rather than on his face and it wasn't as large as we had originally feared. Secondly although his arm was burnt on quite a large area there was no immediate blistering (due to the good bathroom!). Thirdly just down the road from us is a hospital which is a leader in burns treatment - they have developed a special cream which when applied to burns not only reduces scaring, but also removes all pain. My children haven't been in pain since they came home from the hospital (10 minutes after they arrived!). My daughter only has a very small burn on her foot. I still shudder every time I think about what could have actually happened and have the feeling I won't ever be making tempura again and my children now understand that the warnings I give them are not just for fun!
Back to Trev and Gill's visit.... after that lovely episode last night Gill and I took it easy today and just went for a wander around Usa shrine before an exciting lunch of rice balls. As Gill said "10 years ago I would never have imagined that I would be sitting eating balls of cold rice wrapped in seaweed". But she was and like most people who try them seemed to enjoy them.
Trev had a bit of a harder day as he climbed up the mountain with my husband in record time. Judging by the snores from both of them during their afternooon nap it was definately not as relaxing as our nice stroll in the shrine gardens!
For starters the burn to his head was all above the hairline, rather than on his face and it wasn't as large as we had originally feared. Secondly although his arm was burnt on quite a large area there was no immediate blistering (due to the good bathroom!). Thirdly just down the road from us is a hospital which is a leader in burns treatment - they have developed a special cream which when applied to burns not only reduces scaring, but also removes all pain. My children haven't been in pain since they came home from the hospital (10 minutes after they arrived!). My daughter only has a very small burn on her foot. I still shudder every time I think about what could have actually happened and have the feeling I won't ever be making tempura again and my children now understand that the warnings I give them are not just for fun!
Back to Trev and Gill's visit.... after that lovely episode last night Gill and I took it easy today and just went for a wander around Usa shrine before an exciting lunch of rice balls. As Gill said "10 years ago I would never have imagined that I would be sitting eating balls of cold rice wrapped in seaweed". But she was and like most people who try them seemed to enjoy them.Trev had a bit of a harder day as he climbed up the mountain with my husband in record time. Judging by the snores from both of them during their afternooon nap it was definately not as relaxing as our nice stroll in the shrine gardens!
No comments:
Post a Comment