Sunday, November 13, 2011

Bare all or go home

Life has been quite busy here in Sunae lately. I have started taking Korean lessons twice a week and last week began taking swimming lessons from another foreign teacher who is a triathlete coach. I was excited and nervous for my first lesson. I can swim, but not well and I have always had an aversion towards swimming without a nose plug. So as the lesson came closer, my anxiety grew. On Wednesday, the time had I arrived, I made the 40 min journey to my old stomping grounds in Suji. I met my coach at the YMCA and was ready for my first lesson. Now I have been in locker rooms in Korea before, so I was not surprised to see plenty of naked women walking around naked. If you remember, when I was taking hot yoga last year, I finally was forced to take a shower at the gym, however, those showers had stalls so it wasn't too bad. So here I was in the locker room of the Y, with my swimsuit on, ready to go. I asked a lady if she spoke English, and if I needed to take a shower before going onto the pool deck. She looked at me and said, "you have to take a shower BEFORE you put on your swimsuit". As the words came out of her mouth all I could think of was, shit I am going to have to prance around naked in this locker room. I had two options, peace out and leave Eric, my coach, wondering where the hell I was, or strip down and bare it all. So bare it all I did. The shower was of the open concept variety of course. Lucky me. But I did it, and even managed to get through the lesson eager for another! Here's to milestones!

Friday night I headed into Seoul to meet up with some of my bike friends for a special night race put on by the Seoul Flyers running club. It was an 11km run at 11:11pm on 11.11.11. Having been sick with a cold for the past few weeks, I hadn't had the opportunity to get out running at all beforehand so I was a bit nervous of what was to come. I was lucky to have my friend Suzie there to run along with me. We kept each other going through the whole thing and I managed to finish the 11km in 1 hour and 8 mins. Probably the fastest run I had done in awhile! I was quite pleased! We had a great time and then walked along the Han River with some beers to catch a cab home. Pretty great night!

This week brings more busyness! I have Korean class, swimming lessons and I just found a boxing club near my house I plan to check out this week as well! Life is good!