A Trip to the (Chinese) Drug Store

Peter has been suffering from a blood disorder for several years, and we've exhausted all of our avenues in Western medicine, so we thought we'd try the Eastern route.  We went a doctor specializing in Chinese medicine, and by Chinese standards, he has too much "heat", which has been damaging his "Chi".  I don't think we have words for these terms in English, but these are well known symptoms in Chinese.  The doctor sent us off to the drug store with a list of herbs to buy, which I was to make into a tea for Peter (who is 11) to drink.

Here is the drug store.

The first quest was to figure out how to pay, as you have to pay first before receiving your prescription.  When I asked them where I should pay, they kept telling me in Chinese, "Opposite the big gate".  Well I couldn't see any big gate, so then I was wondering if there was something wrong with my understanding of what they were saying (entirely possible!).  Eventually I wandered out of the store, and down the street, and there was a big gate!  I went into that shop, and showed them the prescription.  They took my money (about $8 US), gave me a receipt, and sent me back to the drug store where I handed these ladies the prescription and the receipt.  They told me to "Wait awhile..." I was amazed to see them pulling various strange looking items out of all of those drawers on the back wall, and piling them on plates.  Each plate is enough for a 2 day supply of tea.

Some of the vile looking herbs that were put on the plates; this is a part of Peter's prescription.

I also bought an herb pot, an electric appliance in which you place the herbs with a few cups of water to make the tea.  I cooked the herbs down for about 2 hours and the apartment smelled NASTY!

So far, Peter took a few sips of the tea and almost threw up from the taste, so at this point we don't know if he will be able to stomach this or not.  It has been an interesting experiment but we're not sure if we'll be able to carry through with it or not!