New Years; Doctor's-Office High-Def

I can see my breath in my apartment. It’s kind of creepy. And kind of cool.

So. New Years in Korea…was…interesting. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do since my special friend was hanging out with his friends (which ended up not happening because of early plans the next morning), but since I was very tired I was thinking of probably staying in, maybe watching a movie, maybe studying…the night before I hadn’t slept much, so that was partially why I was thinking about being such a loser.

But in the afternoon, my teammate, who I hadn’t talked with him almost a month (because of my forced absence from weekend practices and his absence from practices during the week because of exams) texted me. I was so glad to hear from him, especially since I had typed out a text the day before to send to him to say Happy New Year and to wish him a fun time in the Philippines (he left this past Saturday and he will be there until March) but didn’t send it because I wanted to write it all in Korean and I was having a hard time. Anyway. So he asked me if I wanted to go out with him and his friends for dinner, since we hadn’t seen each other in while, and since he was leaving soon. So of course, with nothing else to do, I accepted.

I met him and two of his friends around 8p and one of his friends drove us to the restaurant where we later ate. At the restaurant we met one more of his friends for dinner. The dinner was delicious – galbi and dok…which is basically delicious meat and chewy rice-cake-ish stuff. Mmmmm. His friends are really nice, dinner was very fun J Towards the end one of the guy’s girlfriends came, who was really nice as well, and soon we headed for to another restaurant/bar to drink. They had asked me what I was planning on doing after dinner and I said I was planning to meet up with a few of my friends afterwards, because I heard that a few of them were going to a popular spot for sightseeing. So I texted my closest American friend, and she said she was feeling kind of tired and that she might go home because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go all the way to that place. So I said noooo please don’t go home! Come meet me and my teammate and his friend for drinks. So I left them, met up with her, and then we all reconvened at the bar.

That part of the night was really fun. I have found in my experience that Korean guys love American girls and are fascinated by them, especially blonde ones. That was a very interesting experience. That whole situation made me feel a little strange, for reasons I will not go into here. But I had had enough soju that it really didn’t bother me all that much, especially at the time.

Anyway. So we stayed there and they got to know my friend L for a bit, and then we decided to start playing some drinking games. Let me just say that Korean drinking games are so much more fun than American drinking games, at least in my opinion. Except for ones that involve sports…those are pretty fun. Anyhow. Most of these games were memory games or processing things quickly, things which are infinitely more fun when you are drinking. J And there were awesome gestures to go along with it like swaying the arms and elbows, slapping the knees, clapping, almost hand-jive motions. It was great.

We stayed there til through midnight, until about 12:30a. It was cool to have New Years in another country. It didn’t seem as big of a celebration as it is in Boston, and definitely not as big as it is in New York. But most people in the restaurant were counting down (I can’t say for sure everyone because our table was in sort of a nook), and we all toasted at midnight. I actually can’t remember what we said at midnight – but I think the people at our table said ‘Happy New Year’ for L and my sake. Haha.

Also, I just have to add this in. So the guy who drove us to the restaurant had to leave early, before the rest of us. So at 11:57 he gets up to go… …! L was like, you are leaving? It’s 11:57!! To that he responded something similar to ‘Huh. Ok, why not.’ This baffled us. We were thinking, where are you going to go? It is 3 minutes to midnight! If you wanted to meet someone else, why didn’t you leave earlier? And if you aren’t trying to meet anyone for midnight, wouldn’t you rather celebrate with friends rather than be on the street or in your car alone? ha. Not judging or anything…I just thought that was really interesting J.

Around 12:45 we had left the bar and the girl and two of the guys were tired and decided to go home. So my teammate, one of his friends, L and I continued on to a Western Bar, where we spend the next 2 and some odd hours just chillin. It was a very interesting night, and I’m glad that is how I spent my last and first moments of 2008/2009. J

Moving on. So, another note about the doctor’s office in Korea (which all Koreans call the ‘hospital’ although when prodded they are likely to agree that it is more like a clinic than a hospital because the place that I am going everyday would certainly not be labeled as a hospital in the States. Anyhow). It is a very interesting place. I’ll run you through a typical day (for me) at the doctor’s. So I go into the small foyer area, they see me and greet me, and then I take a seat. If there are other people waiting (like today for example, there were three people to be seen before me), then I have to wait a little bit longer…like today I think I waited 5 or maybe 6 minutes. It was intolerable (incase you can’t tell I am being horribly sarcastic). They are SO efficient here! It’s amazing. And I see the doctor every day. For about 2 minutes. As does everyone else, or so it seems. So they call your name, you get about 2, maybe 3 minutes, depending on how terminal your case is, with the doctor, and then they send you on your way to the various activities that await.

Anyway, so they call me in, and I sit. The doctor has me do a few exercises so he can check range of motion, and then he makes sure I have been doing the various things at home that he told me the previous day, and then sometimes he gives me additional instruction. Then he writes out a PT form, I go back to the foyer, and pay my co-pay (which is 3,800 won (rough equivalent…I actually don’t know the exchange rate but no more than $3.00)), and every three days (at least lately) they give me a prescription form to bring downstairs to the pharmacy after PT for…prescriptions…(who saw that coming)..which knocks me down another 1,900 won (maybe $1.20 for 9 doses each consisting of three different types of medicine, although not big doses – but still) – unfathomable, I know (let me also make another aside and thus perhaps the sixth set of parenthesis in this paragraph to comment on how convenient it is that they situate a pharmacy in the same building as the doctor’s office (doc’s office is on the 6th floor, pharmacy on 1st)). Anyway, back to therapy.

After paying, I head on into the next room, where I toss my stuff onto a spare bed, and then take off either my heart rate monitor or my watch (whichever is on my right hand that day…I know this sentence may be difficult in more than one way for some of you to comprehend so don’t worry about it J ), and proceed to dip my hand in hot wax aka a paraffin bath (as I said before, I acknowledge that this treatment may in fact be more than just a tub of how wax but I remain ignorant in the interest of time…I still have Korean homework and a workout to do tonight, sorry folks) proceeded by doing finger bending/extension exercises. I think I said this is the last post, but I can’t get enough of it so I must say it again: paraffin baths work wonders. If you ever want to see how far you can bend something (and maybe it can work its wonders on exercises that involve other motions than bending), stick that something in a paraffin bath and I think you will be quite amazed (those of you reading who have more sophisticated knowledge of paraffin baths might dissuade such a suggestion but I am disclaiming responsibility through stated ignorance) (I wonder if my blogs could be termed as stream-of-consciousness writing? (that was partially meant as a joke incase you were wondering)…sorry for that aside…) Where was I??!?

That last paragraph was intended to describe the rest of my day at physical therapy, and I failed horribly. Although I described the rest in the last post I think – basic electro stim for about 15 minutes and then ultrasound and attempted Korean/English conversation with the nurse, whom, might I add, I am growing extremely fond of. She is so incredibly nice and is very knowledgeable and seems to genuinely care for everyone around her. Not that most nurses aren’t like that, but compared to the average nurse I know she just has something extra special J Oh yea, before I forget – the reason I even started writing today about the doctor’s office – was to describe the very interesting aspect of its…environment. Not only is this place like a doctor’s office, but it also has an X-ray room (across the way from the doctor’s office) as well as many hospital beds where IVs are available. And this office is legit probably the same size, if not smaller, that the first floor of my house. It is amazing how efficient this country is.

Ugh. Not enough time to get to everything today. But I will make an attempt.

Sunday – I decided to ride my bike with the team…I just couldn’t help myself. I had been riding my trainer the other night and when I was shifting my hand didn’t hurt so I figured it would be ok to go outside as long as I took it easy, which I did. The thing that made my hand most sore from that experience was changing the tire, especially since my tire decided to be particularly stubborn in fitting onto the rim, but whatever, I learned a new trick to get my tire on faster with better quality care, so it didn’t end up so bad J.

So I got to Haeundae, late, because I also got a flat that morning (in my house at least, must have been a pinch flat resulting from changing my trainer tire to the outdoor tire the night before when I was having so much trouble…can I still call that a pinch flat?). But anyway. So I was so happy to be out riding again!!! It felt so great. And proved to me how out-of-shape I am. But whatever. I still have 3.5 months til IM, which is a decent amount of time.

Ah. I really want to tell the story about the accident at practice (not my accident this time, but rather this one involved a car) but I fear I will be writing for another hour if I decide to write about that as well as the rest of the day’s festivities, so I will retire for the night in the interest of getting my homework done at a reasonable hour. J