Trash in Korea is very interesting -much more complex than in the states. So much so that I still have some cardboard boxes in my apartment and I don't know what to do with them. But there is an involved trash schedule dictating which things can do out which days. So on Sunday, we put out trash (normal trash, aka anything that is not otherwise specified) and food trash (anything that is food that you might put in your waste basket in the States goes in a separate bag here - we also put all of our uneaten food and drink in a pail at school - I think thats kind of great actually); Monday is Paper bag and bottle recycling; Tuesday is Can, paper, and scrap iron recycling as well as food trash; Wednesday is vinyl and film recycling and trash; and Thursday is trash and food trash. (I definitely had to refer to my notes to write all of that down). So my problem is...where do I put cardboard boxes? That may be a dumb question, and I will ask 수정 (my co-teacher - Su-Jeong in roman letters) tomorrow, but if anyone has any suggestions I would be grateful! But yea...trash is pretty complex here. You actually get charged at the grocery store for bags - very interesting. Also, if they give you a bag, they usually stuff everything into it...and if things don't fit they normally don't give you another bag. My apartment is about a 5 minute walk from the grocery store...and I sweat like a mongrol when I by a lot of stuff because one arm is weighing me down the the ground and the other arm is awkwardly carrying some big misshapen thing that couldn't fit in the bag (most likely a 2L bottle of water that definitely starts hurting the fingers when you are carrying something else in that hand as well). Anyway - I'll just have to figure out how to ask for another bag in hangul - that shouldn't be that hard...
Toilet paper. Very interesting. I just discovered this about an hour ago too, while at the grocery store trying to buy some. Apparently toilet paper in Korea is only sold in packs of 12 or more. No lie...this is one thing that I don't completely understand here - I need some toilet paper! And I live 5 minutes away walking, and I actually have other things that I need to carry back to my apartment, so I can't buy toilet paper which would require me carrying it with two hands!! (It definitely would not fit into a bag). I mean, certainly not everyone has cars here either! Am I missing something? Maybe there is a section for normal packaged quantities of toilet paper somewhere that I am neglecting...or maybe I should try some other stores and hope to get lucky...but this is a bit strange. I ended up buying paper towels...so that is what you will find in my bathroom as TP substitute until I crack this mystery.
Mosquitoes. GEEZ. I have at least 7 bites on my legs, probably closer to 10. They seem to all have accumulated within the past two days. The other day 수정 bought me this contraption to plug into the wall that is to ward off mosquitoes - strangely enough, I didn't really start getting bit too badly until I got this thing. Yea i just counted now and I have 7 on one leg and 2 on another. It's quite unattractive. And I noticed at practice today that none of the other guys had any, or at least enough that it was noticeable. What is that about? I know with my shorts being a bit shorter than theirs (but not much) more of my legs are being exposed, but come on now, thats just not cool. (Oh and Coach's shorts are actually shorter than mine...haha. It's great. As it should be though, because his legs are crazy toned and if mine looked like that I would wear shorter shorts...haha.)
Training!!! So we had practice at Pusan National University (PNU) again today, at the track. I was scared. I'm always scared for running workouts. Because I bust my butt soooo hard to keep up with these guys and I end up pushing myself to race pace everytime, almost too hard. But what ends up happening sometimes is that since I have very good endurance and not as much speed, they will be fine for going a bit faster that I would normally go for 3/4 of the run and then drop a bit and I'm stuck trying to maintain and I'm DYING. After the run today, which was supposed to be 8K (20 laps around the track) but ended up being more like 9K because we had to run in the 5th lane because of track practice, I was soooo tired. We did it in just over 40 minutes, averaging around 7:14s per mile - for me, for 5.55ish miles, that is very fast!!! And it's very humid as well. I don't know how I am doing it - I think I'm trying to look good in front of the Korean triathletes...haha. Coach stopped after about 15 or so laps and started just taking my splits, and started my last lap a little ahead of me so he could push me at the end... :) :). He is so great!
Haha speaking of Coach being great...(Dad you will love this...) so before the workout, I told him that I finally got a phone, so we exchanged numbers. After the workout, I had gotten a text message from one of my friends (one of my Korean friends! -수정's friend whom we had dinner with one of my first nights here - he is a very nice kid :), and my age, so we are automatically friends :) ), and so I checked my phone to see what the noise was. Anyway, about a minute later, my phone rings, and I look at caller ID - it's Coach...and he is standing right beside me....hahaha. And I start laughing, and he starts doing his awesome giggly laugh- hahahahaha. Ohhhh man. I told him, haha - my Dad does that stuff all the time!! Oh man, good times...
I also changed in the men's locker room today...Coach and S2 (the other man who trains with us whose name I couldn't remember the other day (I remember now but am not going to write his name here)) - he is the one who is doing his masters in exercise science with Coach - they both had me go into the men's locker room (no one was in there) and they guarded it for me - because the women's room was locked...haha. Good times.
After the workout, we went out to eat. Ahh I love them so much. Coach (and the others) make fun of me when I pronounce words incorrectly...hahahaha. Hahahaha. Oh man. I love how other people say I have good pronunciation, and they make fun of me. Haha. (Although I think it is just certain words that I was pronoucing wrong, and other than that I feel that I do have decent pronunciation...plus, we are triathletes, and we don't settle for mediocrity so that may be why they comment on it - but I love it - especially since I want to actually be pronouncing things correctly...). For dinner tonight we had 추아탕칼국수 (Chu-a-tang kalguk-su) (those hyphens are completely random by the way) - and this is an AWESOME soup with AWESOME noodles. Awwww soo good. I wrote it down in my phone so I could remember and order it again.
And now I am home, ready to go to bed. Another amazing day of training. Below is a picture taken on Saturday with the team - left to right is: Coach (선생님), me, 승연, and Keri (a girl who teachers English at a University in Busan - she rides with the team often - very very nice girl!!!) And since that picture is a bit dark and hard to see I'll throw in another below:
to the left: me and Coach;
to the right: me and 승연
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