Setting Up for Shipping Out

One year ago, I started a blog about my year teaching in Korea, but it didn't pan out. I worried that it wasn't original enough. You know, there are around 43,000 foreigners working as English teachers in the country, and it seems like every one of them has a blog detailing their experiences with kimchi and alcoholism.

I wanted to be different from that whole crowd. But now I'm realizing that unless I end up working as a transexual prostitute on the international space station, there won't be a niche in the blogosphere that's just for me. So now there's this blog: The Adventures of a Twenty-something Middle-Class White Dude in Southeast Asia. Here's hoping this blog will be one of the good ones at the very least. 

I'm trying to go from Korea to Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and India, all with minimal planning. 

Copyright-free map courtesy of the CIA

But many of these countries are still developing (see: Third World), and are full of exciting new diseases according to the Center for Disease Control, so I'm trying to cover my bases when it comes to vaccinations before flying to the heart of darkness. 

The CDC warns about the following when going to the countries I've mentioned (excluding Japan):
-Japanese encephalitis  Later symptoms include brain swelling and coma. May cause death.
-Hepatitis A Causes vomiting and jaundice, but most people have been vaccinated for American public schools.
-Hepatitis B Can last for life and cause death via liver damage. Transferred via sex and needles. I want a cheap tattoo so this vaccine is high on my to-inject list.
-Typhoid Causes high fever and internal bleeding in some cases.
-Malaria Causes fevers and shaking chills. Can take a year to develop and may cause death if untreated.

From left to right: Lopmin (antidiarrheal); Ciprofloxacin (Antibiotic);
120 Doxycycline Hyclate pills (antimalarial)

So that's the list. I've omitted the various kinds of critters that can infect you through eating unsanitary food. I went to the doctor and they hooked me up real nice. I got a shot for typhoid, one for Japanese encephalitis, and a bunch of pills:



I'm flying off to Japan in two weeks now. Let's see what happens.