Glasses

Somehow I've had the worst luck with glasses in the past few weeks... (actually I should say worst luck in general, considering my horrible travel experience and the incident at the Potomac River).

Last month I lost my pair of glasses (along with my camera) in the Potomac while kayaking, so my mom sent me one of my older pairs with weaker prescription while I was in Oklahoma.

Yesterday after getting out of the swimming pool, my glasses slipped out of my bag onto the floor (only about 2ft below), and one of the arms snapped off. I have no idea how that could happen, but it did.

So after meeting with our PI Dr. Gagandeep Kang this morning, I went to the CMC Eye Hospital, got an eye exam, and ordered a new pair of glasses. It should be ready by Monday. Until then I'll have to wear my broken glasses without one of its arms.

I was actually planning to get a new pair of glasses in India, and now that my backup pair is broken, I was able to get a new pair urgently. So perhaps the glasses braking was a blessing in disguise.

CMC Tour

This morning Lucy (other Fogarty scholar) and I took the public bus to the CMC Hospital, and had a tour of the place. I was quite impressed with the facility. It made me wonder if I could work in a place like this one day, or even start a hospital like CMC somewhere. It was definitely inspiring.

In the afternoon we went for a swim at a swimming pool nearby. The place is very clean and well kept. We swam for about an hour, and now I'm exhausted. I'm so out of shape.

I need to start exercising again now that I'm not in med school... which means I no longer have an excuse (as if I ever had one).

Luggage

I got both of my checked bags today! I had to take a 5-hour round trip to Chennai on a cab, but clearing customs was relatively painless. They put zip-ties on zippers of checked bags and wrap them in these huge plastic sheets here. I suppose it's to prevent people from stealing stuff out of the bags.

Thank God I have clean underwear now.

Traveler's Nightmare

After a series of unfortunate events, I'm finally at my apartment in Vellore!! But my luggages are still in Mumbai...

So the past 40 hours or so of traveling has been an example of what NOT to do when you travel to India (or most places abroad). Basically, I missed my flight from Mumbai to Chennai, bought a new ticket, and waited until morning for the next flight. When I arrived in Chennai I realized that I had left my checked bags in Mumbai! I guess I didn't realize how absent-minded I could be after a 15-hour flight from Newark to Mumbai. So before you ask "What were you thinking?" let me answer you in advance: I wish I knew!

I'll spare you the details but will share with you some of the lessons that I learned:

1. Keep your carryon-bags under 40 lb. Otherwise you maybe forced to pay extra and/or get a 5-min lecture on why having a heavy carry-on is dangerous (I got away with just the latter).

2. Keep your checked bags under 50 lb (or whatever airline's limit is). Usually you can get away with 2 or 3 extra pounds, but some people are very picky, and will ask you to take stuff out until it's exactly 50.0 lb.

3. Be aware that you can become very disoriented, absent-minded, and careless after a long flight. Try to think straight, and don't assume things. Don't forget common sense.

4. When traveling internationally pick up your luggage from baggage claim and clear customs at the port of entry (e.g. Mumbai), even if some Continental Airline staff tells you that they will go straight to your final destination (e.g. Chennai).

5. Don't exchange currency at the first foreign exchange booth you find. Find couple others, and compare their rates. There can be huge differences.

6. In some parts of the world (e.g. India), you can't checkin to your flight until couple hours before the flight, and some flights have designated counters. But just because the flight doesn't have a designated counter number, don't wait until 30 minutes before the flight to see if you can check in. You have to check in at least 45 minutes before the flight, and you can go to any counter as long as the flight is open for checkin.

7. Don't put cash in a clear ziplock bag and put it in the outside pocket of your luggage. And don't be careless to think that it won't get stolen, because it will. Keep cash with you.

Learn from my mistakes and hopefully you won't have to go through what I did!

In any case, praise God I've arrived safely!

Consolidation

Now that I'm about to travel to India, I'm going to start blogging again. I've combined this blog with my old Haiti blog (Zanmi Haiti), and redesigned it to simplify things a little. From now on I'll be posting on this blog for all general topics, rather than making a new blog each time I travel. I never got to finish writing about my Haiti experience, but hopefully I'll be able to keep it up this time.

I'll be flying to India on August 2, and will be spending about 10 months in Vellore for an intensive clinical research training at Christian Medical College through Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars Program. I'm so blessed to have such an amazing opportunity! Praise God!

Stay tuned for updates!

I'm Back

Just wanted to let you all know that I'm now back home in California. I will be working on finishing my blog entries over the next couple weeks, but there will be a little delay as I try to catch up on life back home.

Thanks for stopping by!

SunMin

Haitian Courier #6: Pieces of My Memoirs

[This is a copy of the latest issue of my newsletter Haitian Courier, which was sent on July 26. To subscribe to the newsletter, please visit http://groups.google.com/group/haitian-courier]

Bonjou Mezanmi!

My last newsletter was a brief update just to let you know that I'm alive and well. This time I wanted to give you snippets of what I've been doing in Haiti for the past 6 weeks. Throughout this newsletter, you'll see words with web links, which will take you to corresponding entries on my blog.

First of all, I wanted to let you know that my return flight has changed from August 9 to July 31. The reason is that my older brother Sundo is getting married on August 2. So now I only have a few more days before I go home! Seems like my plans always change on the fly (last year I decided to stay an extra month in P-au-P). I can't believe my time here is almost over!

Secondly, I wanted to put a word out that the clinic here needs an X-ray machine to replace a broken one. Please let me know if you know anyone who needs to get rid of an old machine to replace it with a new digital one or for whatever reason. The one we have here has been broken for a while, and it would help so many people if we had a working X-ray machine.