Obviously you've read the title, and if you know me, you understand that I'm not the greatest at going to a gym regularly. However, I manage to go regularly now, three to four times a week.
In Canada, most of the time you go to the gym and at first you'll try to work really hard because you feel you need to impress people. In Korea, if you go the gym and actually do any sort of workout, your doing more exercise than 75% of the people there. Most of the people that go, just stand around, maybe hop on a machine for a couple minutes, and then walk around some more. Maybe go on a bike, but not actually bike, just sit on it. I think they feel good to say that they are a member of a gym.
Next, I shower at the gym, and there are no stalls just a bunch of shower heads on the wall. Just a big shower room. I don't really have a problem with this. You may think it was only a stereotype about asians and their manhood, but I guarentee it most certainly is not. As I've told you they stare a lot in public at white people, but it doesn't compare to the amount you get stared at when you walk around naked in the shower and locker room. I feel like a peice of meat. To some extent its flattering, but when 50 and 60 year old men are looking at you, its a little awkard.
I could write a blog entry on here everytime I go to the gym about the weird stuff you experience there. Just the other day, some old man stood about a foot in front of me, just staring at me while I was stretching. I figured he would leave, but he just continued to stare. I said hi, and he got all excited and shook my hand, and asked where I was from. Then, he tells me that he thinks I'm handsome. It started out weird as hell with him staring at me, and now it appears we have crossed the line. I'm obviously stunned by this and I'm really uncertain of an answer, and all the comes out is thanks. Smooth, way to let a guy whos really creeping you out feel ok about it by accepting his compliments. Thankfully, I manage to say "have a good night" and he leaves me alone. But we meet again.....In the shower room, and from across the room, I hear him yelling saying HI to me. He's waving like were long, lost friends. At this point we have definetly went way over the line, so I shower as quickly as possible and get the fuck out of there before I have to deal anymore of his creepiness. If I didn't, who knows what might have happened, he may have wanted to play swords with me.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Boracay, Philippines
As I mentioned, I managed to get one week off of school, and we decided to go to Boracay. A tiny island in the Philippines, thats said to have one of the best beaches in the world.
In order to get to this island, I had to take two buses, two planes, and a ferry, and it took nearly 12 hours to do it all. The last part of it was super sketchy too. After taking a bus from what may possibly be the smallest airport ever, we drove for two hours through the countryside, and finally got to a dock. As soon as we arrive, the power went out. We are directed toward a boat, have to walk across a plank to get on it (at this point you should realize this wasn't a fancy boat), and then take a 10 minute boat ride. We dock the boat, get escorted to a little truck. At this point I have no sweet clue if any of these people have anything to do with my hotel, but since I don't have any other choices at the moment, I go along with it. Luckily, someone must have known what the hell was going on and who we were, and we made it to our resort.
The trip was pretty sweet. We were there for 6 days, but really only four because we didn't get in until late on the first night, and we left at 7am on the last day. We only managed to get 2 days of sun and the rest was overcast and rainy. Yet, it was still a pretty good time. The people there were nice and extremely polite, always calling you sir or maam. The transportation system (if thats what you want to call it) was made up of guys driving dirt bikes or scooters with a big metal sidecar attached to the side. The bikes hardly had enough power to get up the hills, and we were told that one person actually had to get out and push theirs up a hill. I thought they were pretty sweet though; sketchy as hell, but fun nonetheless. The beach was awesome, it was about 4km long of white sand and you could get anything you could imagine on the beach, from massages, fresh fruit, drinks or maybe even a Philippino hooker. This seemed to be pretty popular among the old creepy man crowd.
We were there over New Years, and ended up going on a sailboat/island hopping/snorkling trip on New Years Eve (during the day). It was only Kris and I, and we had to sit on netting attached to the side of the sailboat. It wasn't your normal sailboat. We ended up whipping through huge waves because it was a stormy day, so that was pretty sweet. We were gone for about 4 and half hours and it cost around $80.We were intially told it would be much cheaper, but at the end of the trip that was the cost I was told, and I was too lazy and tired to argue with the guy.
There were big dinners all along the beach that night, so we went to one and had a bunch of seafood. After we went and had some drinks, and watched the fireworks, which seemed to go on all night long. Although I'm not certain it was from the dinner that night, the next day, I was sick. Your obviously thinking it was from the drinking but it wasn't. I felt like ass all day, and then after supper that night, I felt even worse. Fell asleep around 8ish, and woke up for a nice barf around 1030, which was then accompanied by a fever and some chills. This was obviously my favorite night of the trip. Other than that though, the trip went well, and I don't have any complaints, except that I wish we could have stayed longer, and it didn't take an entire day to get to the resort.
In order to get to this island, I had to take two buses, two planes, and a ferry, and it took nearly 12 hours to do it all. The last part of it was super sketchy too. After taking a bus from what may possibly be the smallest airport ever, we drove for two hours through the countryside, and finally got to a dock. As soon as we arrive, the power went out. We are directed toward a boat, have to walk across a plank to get on it (at this point you should realize this wasn't a fancy boat), and then take a 10 minute boat ride. We dock the boat, get escorted to a little truck. At this point I have no sweet clue if any of these people have anything to do with my hotel, but since I don't have any other choices at the moment, I go along with it. Luckily, someone must have known what the hell was going on and who we were, and we made it to our resort.
The trip was pretty sweet. We were there for 6 days, but really only four because we didn't get in until late on the first night, and we left at 7am on the last day. We only managed to get 2 days of sun and the rest was overcast and rainy. Yet, it was still a pretty good time. The people there were nice and extremely polite, always calling you sir or maam. The transportation system (if thats what you want to call it) was made up of guys driving dirt bikes or scooters with a big metal sidecar attached to the side. The bikes hardly had enough power to get up the hills, and we were told that one person actually had to get out and push theirs up a hill. I thought they were pretty sweet though; sketchy as hell, but fun nonetheless. The beach was awesome, it was about 4km long of white sand and you could get anything you could imagine on the beach, from massages, fresh fruit, drinks or maybe even a Philippino hooker. This seemed to be pretty popular among the old creepy man crowd.
We were there over New Years, and ended up going on a sailboat/island hopping/snorkling trip on New Years Eve (during the day). It was only Kris and I, and we had to sit on netting attached to the side of the sailboat. It wasn't your normal sailboat. We ended up whipping through huge waves because it was a stormy day, so that was pretty sweet. We were gone for about 4 and half hours and it cost around $80.We were intially told it would be much cheaper, but at the end of the trip that was the cost I was told, and I was too lazy and tired to argue with the guy.
There were big dinners all along the beach that night, so we went to one and had a bunch of seafood. After we went and had some drinks, and watched the fireworks, which seemed to go on all night long. Although I'm not certain it was from the dinner that night, the next day, I was sick. Your obviously thinking it was from the drinking but it wasn't. I felt like ass all day, and then after supper that night, I felt even worse. Fell asleep around 8ish, and woke up for a nice barf around 1030, which was then accompanied by a fever and some chills. This was obviously my favorite night of the trip. Other than that though, the trip went well, and I don't have any complaints, except that I wish we could have stayed longer, and it didn't take an entire day to get to the resort.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Christmas 07
Yup, its mid January and I am making a post about Christmas. Although this whole blogging thing only takes a couple of minutes, its appears as though I'm too lazy to move my fingers and type a message, and that's why I don't have too many posts. Perhaps my New Years resolution can be making an attempt at keeping up with this.
At first, Christmas looked like it would actually really suck. First off, we were initially told that we would not get any time off for Christmas, but then after doing some nagging, we managed to get a week off, after Christmas. We also got Christmas Day off. Likely only because its a national holiday and we have to be given it off. Thus, I worked Christmas Eve, and Boxing Day. Quite similar to my days at Casino Nova Scotia, but less depressing because I wasn't swiping peoples money, and Christmas isn't that big of a deal here. It did suck that I wasn't able to call in "sick" to work on Boxing Day, like at the Casino and attend the Capitol for Middleton's one and only exciting night of the year. Christmas Eve involved getting drunk, and Christmas Day involved laying around hungover and opening a couple gifts.
Did I have a Turkey Dinner? Fuck no. First off, we don't have an oven at our apartment. We have a small stove, with two gas burners. Second, I don't know how the hell to cook a turkey or anything that goes with it, and third, I don't know that you could even buy a turkey here. All my students laughed at me when I asked them if they were going to be eating turkey. Sooo, what did I have for Christmas Dinner? I made a trip to the Homeplus food court, and had some spaghetti, chicken, salad, corn and cream soup. This may sound fancy, but its far from it. You would think that the place would be dead or not even open considering it was Christmas, but it was packed with families. Nothing like a beautiful food court meal for you and your family on Christmas.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Mold
We finally decided after two months of waiting for our director to buy us a couch, that we would just get our own. It was getting pretty shitty to only be able to sit on your bed. The day we order it, our directors husband tells us he just happened to find a couch that day. Obviously, I don't think it was a coincidence that he finds a couch the same time we buy one. I think he was insulted that we went ahead and got it ourselves. So we end up getting two couches for our little apartment the same day. We have no idea what our house address is, and we weren't able to leave work when the couch was being delivered, so we had to get it dropped off at the school. Most normal people would offer to help you get it home, especially if they have a large van. But not this day. We got to carry it home from school.
In order to fit both couches into our apartment we needed to do some rearranging. We moved a dresser and found a huge pile of mold growing on the wall behind it. From the ground up, probably about 3 feet worth of the green stuff. We scrubbed the wall, but there was still a huge stain. I told my director the next day about it, and she basically just laughed and thought it was funny. Makes sense, there is nothing funnier that a bunch of mold growing in your apartment. I wasn't overly thrilled about this, so we took a picture of it, and showed them. After seeing the picture, they believed it was a big problem. No shit.
Our landlord came over about a week or so later to fix it. The remedy, put a big white sticker like thing over it. I'm pretty certain this probably isn't going to help much, and once some moisture builds up again, it will be the return of the mold. The only thing I can really do, is buy a dehumidifier. And obviously, it will come out of my pocket, because here, everyone thinks mold is funny, and not a problem, so there is not much need to take any actions in preventing or fixing it.
In order to fit both couches into our apartment we needed to do some rearranging. We moved a dresser and found a huge pile of mold growing on the wall behind it. From the ground up, probably about 3 feet worth of the green stuff. We scrubbed the wall, but there was still a huge stain. I told my director the next day about it, and she basically just laughed and thought it was funny. Makes sense, there is nothing funnier that a bunch of mold growing in your apartment. I wasn't overly thrilled about this, so we took a picture of it, and showed them. After seeing the picture, they believed it was a big problem. No shit.
Our landlord came over about a week or so later to fix it. The remedy, put a big white sticker like thing over it. I'm pretty certain this probably isn't going to help much, and once some moisture builds up again, it will be the return of the mold. The only thing I can really do, is buy a dehumidifier. And obviously, it will come out of my pocket, because here, everyone thinks mold is funny, and not a problem, so there is not much need to take any actions in preventing or fixing it.
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