Friday was my first Halloween in a foreign country, and let me tell you, it was a very interesting experience. I actually can't make any big comparisons to Halloween in the States because I never was much of a party animal and thus haven't experienced any of the crazy shenanigans that probably go on. But basically if you are dressed up in a costume in Korea on Halloween, people look at you similar to the way one might look at someone in the States if that person is walking around on the streets in the winter wearing a bathing suit, goggles, and a swim cap. So that in itself was an interesting experience. I didn't attract THAT much attention because I was dressed up as a carrot, so I was just wearing orange clothes and a green hat. However, my jacket was orange enough to attract attention, especially since all of my other clothes were orange and they pretty much did not match (that was intentional). However, I was somewhat oblivious to the reactions of others because prior to going out, I had drunk just about an entire bottle of soju, so I was in my own little hilarious world not caring about anything...it was amazing.
So we all (a group of EPIK people) met at a friend's house near Pusan National Univeristy. We drank there and played games for a bit and then went out to a bar. There were lots of foreigners there, all dressed up in costumes. It was crazy! Outside of the bars was pretty much a normal friday night, but once you hit those foreigner bars it was like Halloween in any other major city (I'm assuming). Lots of costumes, lots of alcohol, lots of fun. The streets also started to get a little infested with us after we started to disperse to other bars. I can't actually remember if there were many Koreans on the streets gaping at us or not, I just remember there being a lot of people wearing very interesting things... I left around 1:30am, because I still had practice in the morning. Usually I wake up at 8:00 to eat breakfast and then leave around 8:30 for practice, but since I went to bed at 2:30a I knew that wasn't happening. So I made a decision to take a cab in the morning so I could save at least an hour of travel time and gain an extra hour of sleep. I think I might have still been drunk in the morning, actually, because I was laughing at things that were not really funny for most of the morning and even into the afternoon...but you can never tell with me because sometimes I just break out into laughter for no reason every day...anyway. I am glad I got that extra hour of sleep, because our bike ride today ended up being one of the hardest rides I have ever been on, one that actually made me think "I can't believe I am actually training to qualify for Kona, this is craziness!" But to be fair, it was really windy, and the people I was riding with were really fast. At least compared to me. So we rode 71km, about 44miles, not too far. But, crapper. Coach was staying back with me when I was getting dropped, which made me feel bad. But when I told him he didn't have to stay back with me, he was like, 'no, my pace too!' Haha. That was great to hear.
Anyways. So after that, I was pretty sore, and tired. We went to a restaurant - me, Coach, S, and the two other men who joined us today (both Ironmen triathletes) - to eat "old men's food" - apparently because it helps control cholesterol...and I was told that most other people are not a huge fan of the food, but I liked it - thought it was great. It was just soup and fish (I think blowfish?) and lots of vegetables. We put vinegar in the soup to give it some flavor. Had some rice on the side. It was delicious.
Now I'm starting to get sore. We depart from the two men who joined us on the ride, and Coach, S and I went to Nurimaru to walk around before swimming. Swimming was really hard today too, go figure! (Although my times were faster than they had ever been before so that was probably a big reason why it was hard...but that is a great reason :) ) And after that, as if I hadn't sufficiently exhausted myself, I decided to go out with my friends again on Saturday night. Go me (aka stupid me...) - but it was definitely fun.
I met up with a Korean friend and his friend, and we then met up with a few of my American/Canadian friends. We went to a restaurant to drink some beer and then hit up a Makali bar, makali being a rice-wine type of alcohol. It was actually really good - especially compared to the makali that I had tried out of a bottle in the stores - the stuff in the bar tasted like a different drink. If you are ever in Korea and want to try some makali, do not buy it in the stores. Hit up a makali bar - it is worth it! And the scenery at the place we went was pretty sweet too - a quaint little straw hut. Fantastic.
So I left pretty early, around...oh actually, maybe 1:30am? So not early for me...and late enough for me to decide to sleep an extra hour and a half in the morning and take another taxi before practice...haha. And the ocean on Sunday was a bit of a challenge, probably partly because there was a yacht race (do you call it a race?) and I'm thinking that made the water a little choppy - but even if that wasn't the case, the waves were still pretty big and I definitely had some trouble breathing. However, after my first 1.5ish km lap, I started to feel out the ocean a bit, and started to learn its rhythms. By the beginning of the second lap, I felt like I was becoming one with the ocean! I could feel when a wave was coming, and was doing a pretty good job to time my strokes so that I would breathe on the top of a wave, even if it meant staggering my arm stroke, although I tried to avoid that and keep my rhythm. Also I started to adopt a rolling-over-the-wave technique, where if my next breath was to be away from the wave (towards the shore), I would speed up the stroke a bit before the breath and slightly exaggerate the turning of my body on its side so that the wave's momentum would not throw off my my momentum which was going in a somewhat-perpendicular direction. But anyway. That was a great experience :)
Monday was incredibly exciting because it was my first Korean test, but I will write about that later because I am still sweaty and smelly from practice today (Wednesday). I thought you would all like to know that :)
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