Saturday night, Leonard and I went to his assistant Crystal's wedding. The event took place at the Caesar Park Hotel and Crystal invited us up to her room beforehand. We offered her our best wishes (in front of the videographer) and she gave us cute little gifts. She is so sweet and looked simply breathtaking.
In Taiwan, there is no wedding ceremony. You simply get your marriage license and sign it in front of two witnesses who also sign it. They sign it using their "chops" so the slang for getting married is getting chopped. Chieh works for the legislature and is a PhD student so his professor gave a speech, then Crystal's boss David gave one, and then they got chopped. After that Crystal's dad gave one, and Chieh's dad gave the final one. They also exchanged rings, Crystal will wear her's on her right hand, middle finger. Chieh will wear his on his left hand, middle finger. They also shared a modest kiss, you could tell Chieh was eager, but Crystal was shy. Then the feasting began.
Crystal had not one, not two, but three gorgeous wedding dresses that she looked absolutely stunning in! Through out the night she and Chieh would sneak off to change. Chieh changed his tie too. There was also entertainment in the form of a flamenco dancer and a saxophone player.
I'm really glad Leonard and I were able to attend this happy event. I wish Crystal and Chieh a lifetime of happiness and love. This was our first Taiwanese wedding, so here I have to record my thoughts on the menu of this great feast.
There were 14 different courses! One was chicken, one was pork, and the rest were all seafood. I was nervous about that and about eating with chopsticks, but I was also feeling adventurous and wanted to try at least a bite of everything (but I didn't sample the wine or champagne). Here's the play-by-play: lobster-good, crab-good, jellyfish-not bad, raw black fish egg patty-not good! Another notable item included Imperial Shark's Fin soup. Now, I am ethically opposed to shark's fin soup, but one of Leonard's co-workers told me it was imitation shark fin. I tried it, so now I won't need to again in the future. Now the last course was stir-fried rice with eel (alas, no wedding cake). I cut a tiny bite of the eel, but as I began chewing it I realized I didn't scrape enough of the skin off of the back and there were tiny bones in it.
I hate spitting food out into napkins (especially cloth ones), but I'm sorry I wasn't going to swallow fish bones. I discreetly spit my bite out and took a drink of my juice. Low and behold, one of the little bones escaped! and it got stuck in my throat! I could breathe, it was just painful (imagine having a needle sliver in your tonsil) so I wasn't going to worry about it until I got home. By the time I got home, took the babysitter home, and then really got home it was almost midnight. I looked on-line for some "home remedies" and one said to drink lemon juice to dissolve it. Aha! I have lemon juice at home! I chugged a cup of it down and went to bed.
The next morning it was still there. I got ready for church and tried to take my mind off it. After church it was still bugging me, so I decided I needed to go to the doctor. Len called our family doctor and he said I would need to go to an ear, nose, and throat specialist, but since it was Sunday I'd have to go to the Emergency Room. Now I hate going to the doctor, but especially the hospital. However, I had also read on-line how fish bones could cause an abscess or all sorts of trouble as they migrate through your system, so I sucked it up and went to the hospital.
First, the doctor simply looked down my throat with a tongue depressor- nothing. Second, the real trauma came when they shot anesthesia up my nose (which not only numbed my nostrils and throat, but also my tongue and my lips- I seriously felt like I had 2 ice cubes stuck to my face were my lips were supposed to be). Now the anesthesia was for the fiberscope that they pushed up my nose and down my throat to take a closer look. They showed me my vocal chords on the monitor and I seriously got woozy! I've fainted a few times in my life and I could feel it coming on. I had to stop and rest my head in my hands for a few minutes to cool down. They did it a total of 3 times and found nothing. Third, they took a couple of x-rays of my neck. You may have guessed by now that they showed a whopping nada! This whole drama was much ado about nothing?! And I still felt like I had a fishbone stuck in my throat!
The doctor said I must have swallowed it, but it scratched me first so it was still giving me the sensation of still being there. Ugh! He gave me 2 different medicines- an antacid, and an anticonvulsant. The way our healthcare works here is- we pay out of pocket and then get reimbursed. The whole event cost a whopping $1,400 NT (about $42 US) and my meds cost another $27 NT ($0.90 US). This is the 3rd country I've lived in with socialized health care. I really think the US needs to change their health insurance situation. Anyway, that's for another soap box. What lessons did I learn from this though? 1-Follow my instincts of not wanting to go to a doctor and 2-If I'm going to eat fish, it will only be shellfish!
