Like wearing a sign on my head.

There are some things that I do In Japan that I would never do in Hawaii. Carry an umbrella, sit with my legs crossed, or wear a beanie just to name a few. But thanks to a mean cold that I caught this week, I "discovered" a new Japan-only thing to do. Wear a mask. After forgetting to bring a thick jacket on my last snowboard trip I started feeling a bit under the weather from just the cold bus ride there. I was okay for the first 3 hours of snowboarding, but then, I gave myself a bruised rib and two other bruises the size of fists (damn that rail with the 5cm shred of metal sticking out.)  I'm not sure if things work that way, but I swear the fever started kicking in not long after that. Do bruises affect the immune system in anyway? Might be the fatigue from riding these overnight buses, or just from boarding every weekend but I was wiped out. Tired, coughing, body aches, fever but I still had to go to work the next day. So since I was probably highly contagious, I decided to do what everyone else does here. Put on a mask. People wear masks all the time here. Some for their allergies, other to be polite and prevent getting others around them sick. I think it does have the obvious benefits of preventing me from coughing my germs on everyone, but besides that I noticed a few others. 1, It keeps my face warm in this cold winter. 2, I don't have to shave before I leave the house. An 3, It lets everyone know that I'm sick, which was a huge benefit. It was as good as having a sign on my forehead that said, "Leave me alone, I'm sick." or even better, "I feel like shit. Let me go home early."