Back to Practice; Trash Venting; Etc.

Wow. My life is back to crazy busy that I can't remember what I did yesterday. But its great.

On Sunday, as I mentioned in the previous blog, there was an accident at practice. We (the youth team) were riding in the parking lot of the Yacht Club, as we usually do on Sunday mornings, although today it was a bit different. Since there were so many cars, the way which we usually ride was blocked off (the place where I crashed into the pole, incidentally..haha), so we were riding up and down a long street, pretty much. At one end, the road made a P shape as we were riding up the stem of the P. So as to turn around, we would take a right and ride into the small parking lot area, and then take a left and turn back around onto the straight part of the P (which has two-way traffic). Towards the end of practice, we were riding this part of the course as a car was riding with us in the same direction. Everyone saw the car, but many people saw it about a minute before they had to think about its existence for the second time. Anyway, as we took the curved path, the car went straight, and as the leaders of the group (the group was led by a Coach - one of the kids my age) took a left, they turned into a blind spot which happened to be a spot where a car was advancing forward towards us. So one of the kids hit the car - he was fine, because he wasn't going fast and the car wasn't going fast because it was a parking-lot type area, but regardless - his bike hit the car. When we found out that he was ok, we saw the driver of the car start to get really mad (he might have been mad before knowing if the kid was ok - I don't know). I sort of feel responsible because I was more towards the back and I saw the car going straight and was thinking in my head 'I hope the Coach up there realizes that there was a car behind them (even though we should always look before taking a left hand turn even if it is in a parking lot), and I hope the car isn't dumb enough to completely disregard the dozens of children riding their bikes towards the area to which he was also advancing'...but neither of those things happened. And the car driver was yelling at the young coach and then my coach too..it was a mess. Anyway. It ended up ok. I think.

After that Coach and I went for a run. I hadn't run more than 18 minutes and 30 seconds in maybe...4 weeks? Maybe 3. I don't know. Point is, I am not in good running shape. We were only to run 50 minutes (short for a Sunday run), but although we started out slow we ended up going much faster. My averge heart rate was something like 188? Hahaha. Maybe only for 40 min though because I might have started the HRM late. Anyway. That's still kind of high :) But I felt SO AMAZING after. We were both panting, but with huge smiles on our faces.

After that, Coach and his wife decided that it would be nice for us to go to a restaurant called Hurgsiru, which is a restaurant popular for its atmosphere and for its food. The atmosphere is somewhat analagous to a traditional Korean village a few generations ago, and the food of specialty was pumpkin and duck. Oh my GOODNESS. It was SO delicious. And then after, we went to walk around the greenhouse-area which was right next to the restaurant (part of it I think) to look at the flowers...and...about 50 meters away from that were two sets of cages with animals inside. Guess what animals were there.....!!!!! Bunnies...and MONKEYS!!!!! I got SO excited that I think I scared Coach's wife for a minute because although I am always excited about triathlons this was a surprised excitement of childish intensity and I don't think she was expecting that. Oh man. It was SO awesome! I actually took pictures this day but ... I'm so lazy right now and don't have the power to upload them especially since I have to leave soon for Korean lessons. But I will post them soon I promise!

After that, Coach and his family took me to get a heating mat for my bed, because we were talking about staying warm and complaining about the cold a bit and it came up that I didn't have a heating pad. I don't know if you have ever heard of these (I'm sure we have them in the States but they are certainly not as popular as they are here), but most Koreans have these contraptions here. And especially since I have not been using my heat much lately because it is so darn expensive they insisted on taking me to get one. Ugh. I love them so much! I mean, the past 4 weeks have been fine - I've still had a good time here and have done some fun things and kept myself occupied, but it just has not been the same without Coach and the team. I feel almost complete again (I will feel complete I think once my anxiety about the trash debacle subsides...an adventure which I will talk about in the future because it is still stressing me out especially because there is still come uncertainty...disposing of trash here is sooo meticulous...which I think is actually great, but when you do something wrong because you were watching what other people were doing and thus you do the same, and someone comes and yells at you for doing that in a language which you don't understand well, for about 5 minutes, and when they don't directly answer the question which you asked in Korean because that is probably the only way you will understand...I need alcohol just thinking about it. I know that might not have made much sense but it helped me by venting :) ). In any case. My point was! - that once that is sorted out, I will feel complete again. But not even complete, because I am always just bursting with happiness and excitement when I am training, and especially now that I am also taking Korean lessons everyday with a very nice teacher, I have so much to be happy and thankful and excited about, and everything added up together can't be described as complete because there is nothing finite about it.

English Camp started this week too, as I might have already mentioned. Something which I will address after Korean tonight. For now it's time to go study!