Locker Room Lunch

Dear locker room ladies,
Why do you do the things you do?

This past week seriously felt like 3 weeks had passed. I think it's the holiday that gets me. Korea celebrated Buddha's birthday on Tuesday, so everyone had the day off work. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. My week was packed full of fun, interesting, and disturbing situations.

On Monday, Mrs. Ko invited me and Mrs. Nam over to her traditional Korean house for some tea. The traditional house was very very neat. When you walk in the front gate, it's like your walking into a court yard from Medieval times. There is a stone wall that surrounds the yard until it ends at the small hill. On this hill she had planted tons of Azaleas and on top of the little hill they had planted a bamboo forest. It was beautiful. The pictures don't really do it justice. The house is a little hard to explain. Basically it is one story, fairly long, somewhat narrow, and the doors are made for very very short people. Here are some pics:

This is the view from the back gate

This is the front gate. On the other side is the driveway. The room to the right is the laundry room, the room to the left is a wine storage room.

The house is to the right and the little building right in front is a little porch. Notice the large, decorative kimchi pots to the right. You could play a mean game of hide and seek with access to those things.

The front of the house.

Inside the house..I tried to capture the shortness of this door, I don't know if I did. This was definitely not made for the average American.


The hallway
Tea time with Mrs. Ko and Mrs. Nam!

Tuesday was Buddha's Birthday. Several teachers and I went to the base to play some racquetball and eat some lunch. Watch out, Abby Bentle, I'm taking you down when I get back! Nothing like celebrating a Korean holiday surrounded by America's finest and chowing down some Taco Bell. Outside of base, all the Buddhist temples serve a free lunch of rice and kimchi, I didn't take advantage of this at the time, but little did I know I would have quite the scarring experience with rice and Kimchi on Thursday.

Wednesday came and went, but Thursday was quite the day. After you read these next few paragraphs, you will quickly understand why I do not have pictures to go along with this "first."

I think I've told you this before, but the locker room at the gym I exercise at is a pretty liberal place if you know what I mean, and the time of day that I exercise is at about the same time as roughly 15 middle aged women. Let's just say my eyes are glued to the floor as much as possible when I walk in those doors. This actually reminds me of a story I forgot to tell you last week.

A couple weeks ago, I walked into the locker room and I first noticed that the women were actually fully clothed while doing their hair and putting their makeup on, then I noticed a man who was working on the water cooler. That explained the unusual modesty of the women. But then, unfortunately, one of the women did NOT notice him and right there for the world to see she whipped her top off (all parts of her top) and all the women in the locker room gasped a little and the man said, "Omo" which means "Oh my!" She finally noticed him and was soooo embarrassed while all the women just laughed and laughed and laughed. Clearly that water cooler worker got a little more than what he was being paid for.

So, you catch my drift right? The locker room is not for the faint of heart. So anyways, Thursday's workout was a little odd. I don't know what it is about Koreans, but they barely sweat. Maybe it's because they spend the majority of their time doing crazy stretches, but I definitely stand out with the amount of sweat that I disperse everyday. Thursday, while I was doing my last weight machine this lady gave me an enzyme replenishing drink. I thought it was pretty humorous but also very nice.

I was noticing during my workout that not many of the women were around. I was also noticing a strong food smell. I finished up and walked into the locker room. In the locker room I saw about 12 women standing around the bench area in the middle of the room. On the bench sat the biggest bowl I have ever seen filled with rice in this spicy red sauce with sides of Kimchi. I was a bit taken aback. These women, half of which were topless and the other half just in their full out birthday suit, were chowing down right there in the locker room. I thought I could just get my stuff and high tail it out of there, but they would not have that. Instead, a lady in her birthday suit came over and tried communicating to me that I should come and eat. I tried to refuse, but I didn't want to risk more of them flocking over to me. This was definitely going to be a first. So, I wedged myself into this awkward circle of women and started eating this rice and Kimchi. It was pretty spicy, and I had literally just come out of an hour and a half workout, so I tried to eat it quickly. I finally had about 1/4 of it left in my bowl and thought I was home free until another lady gave me a huge spoonful of rice and more Kimchi. ugh. But I finished it off like a good foreigner.

The whole time I couldn't really understand this situation. Where did this food come from? Why did they bring it in the locker room, isn't this kind of gross? How did they get that huge bowl in here? How are they eating this right after working out? (biggest question of all) WHY ARE THEY ALL SO NAKED? They tried talking to me, which was nice, but from their odd gestures, I'm kind of glad there was a strong language barrier. Anyhow, I thought the weirdness was over, but on my way out, I said thank you to the ladies and one of the older ladies just slapped me on my behind like we were a couple of high school boys in a basketball game. Weirdest workout for sure.

Friday came and I was ready for a little normalcy. But that was not in the cards. I was walking to work and this lady came up to me and was speaking Korean like we were BFFs, it was a little strange, but she seemed nice. I ended up taking the bus, and I said good morning to the bus driver and enjoyed the 5 minute bus ride as opposed to the 35 minute walk. When I got off the bus I was walking away, pretty close to the front of the bus when the bus driver honked. It startled me at first, but when I turned around the bus driver was waving goodbye. This also was a little strange, but nice. I was the first one to work, and already was a little jumpy from the bus incident. While I was sitting alone in the teacher's lounge, the fire alarm went off very very loudly. I nearly jumped out of the 4th story window it shocked me so much. Turns out it was just some testing the fire department was doing.

So Friday was also a bit unusual but at least I wasn't forced to eat spicy food in a lockerroom full of naked bodies. Friday night, Elizabeth, Hwa Jeong, and I went to a Jim jil bang. This was actually pretty neat. These jim jil bangs take up a whole building. There are saunas, bathhouses, a gym, a TV, massage chairs, sleeping areas, sleeping cubbies, a snack bar, etc. It's a pretty cool hangout spot. Many people spend the night at these places, on the floor, in the wide open spaces. I'm not sure why they want to sleep there in front of strangers, but people do. It was definitely a first and I could see it becoming a second as well.

Saturday was such a great day. The pastor of my church took a small group of people fishing at this nice lake outside of the city. Due to my past failures, I wasn't expecting much, but I DID catch a goodlooking bass which we ended up cleaning, frying and eating for dinner. For lunch we ate MRE's which stands for "Meal, Ready to Eat." It's what people in the military eat when they are at war. It's actually pretty cool and if I had more time I would explain it in my own words, but if you are really that interested you can read about them here.

So, the week came to a close. It was a very long, yet eventful week. I hope I didn't bore you too much :) Have a wonderful week!