Wow I am amazed at how easy it is to get busy in a new country. Busy I am and getting in trouble for not doing my homework with learning Korean. Sooo much pressure. I think my problem is I'm not a home body so to sit home and study is hard to do. My books are too heavy to carry with me unless I use my backpack.
I started on an exercise plan this week with a friend and whilst it has only just begun it has been great. I live a 7 minute walk from Olympic Park where there is the overall grounds (like in Sydney) and the swimming pool. I went swimming last night and was surprised at how well I did considering I hadn't been in a pool doing laps for so long. Many differences though too. You can only sign up to use the pool on a monthly basis in the last 4 days of the month before. As a casual swimmer you can only use the pool at very limited times and you all have just one lane to swim in. Doesn't matter if you are mucking about or doing laps or what your pace is. Oh and they move you too if you try to swim in the monthly lane (we tried). Anyway I did my laps which was great. The change rooms.....hhmmm, well they wander around in there with not a stitch on and no one is bothered by it. There is a quick dry gadget that spins your costume dray in about 30 seconds and they use hand towels for drying themselves. Whilst that seems a bad idea it is great to make sure your bag is small when going to the pool or gym. We (my exercise buddy and I) have also started walking around the park the days we aren't swimming. This morning we joined in the free dance class that they run at 6am. It is a good workout too. I thought it may be Tai Chi but it was full on dance with older women (adjuma) and older men (adjushee) and younger as well. It was fun so now we will dance once a week. We have just bought some light hand weights also for when we are walking so we will be looking like the adjuma's powering around Olympic Park in the morning.
The children here are very obsessessed with my hairy arms. They have only just discovered them now it is getting warmer and they are constantly touching them. For some reason they are obsessed with touching my backside too. Odd!!!
It is a very sharing culture here. When you go hiking you not only share food with your fellow hikers but Koreans on the mountain will share any and all food with you (if you are a foreigner). We have walked away from passing some Koreans eating with a bag of fruit, bottle of markholi (rice based alchol), nuts, kimbap (sushi roll). What was funny about that time is it was literally walking past and saying hello. The children are also big sharers as well. They will share their lollies (or candy as the Americans call it), biscuits, whatever they bring in to class. One sweet girl now knows I love coffee so she bought me in a cold coffee. Pity it had milk in it so I passed it on to one of my Korean co-teachers.
Disappointingly we are not allowed to accept gifts at my school. My boss doesn't want parents to feel they have to give gifts so she has a policy of no gifts. Last week nearly all my students brought something in for me as it was teacher's day. Sadly they all got returned with a phone call from my Korean co-teacher. Boohoo!!
I am addicted to hiking at the moment. Specially if there are rocks on the mountain. San means mountain in Korean and if the letters ak are in the name of the mountain it means there are some difficult rocks. Since learning this I want to go to any 'aksan' mountains. Hiking here though is very different but still fantastic.
Ok I'm going to leave it there for this one......hopefully not over a month before the next one. I'm so sorry for the no photos......they are all on faccebook :o) It is just me and mountains anyways. I steal evryone else's cause my camera seems to stay in my bag all the time.
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