It's the little things

So Friday night at TKD we sparred. It was great. But in the process my ankles seemed somehow drawn towards my partners elbows.
My feet were sore but it's to be expected so no big deal. I had an errand to run after class and they were still sore, but again, to be expected and stop being such a Barbie about it.

When I came home I iced and relaxed on the couch for a while and when I finally got up I couldn't even walk on my left foot.
Again, suck it up princess.

ok, this sucks but just take some Tylenol and go to bed as you have to get up early tomorrow to go to the island school to teach.
Tylenol did nothing and I ended up in bed moaning from my stupid foot.

It wasn't all that swollen so I called Darren and had his AT friend give me some ideas of what it might be. From that I searched the internet of possibilities.

Still sore and now it's midnight. crap.

I have broken my one ankle twice before so I know what that feels like and I knew that it definitely wasn't something as severe as that.

Ok. Princess decides to go on an adventure to the hospital. This is the first time I've gone to the hospital for something like this.

I arrive and the taxi driver was nice enough to let me hold on to his arm while I hopped to the admin desk.

While the reception lady is taking down my info I'm looking at my surroundings. There is some hammered guy with blood all over his preppy suit while his buddies are pulling him out of the hospital. Damn that soju.

Next there is some poor guy who is a cook of some sort who had sliced his fingers open and required stiches. I was definitely glad I wasn't him.

As I was sitting on the bed waiting to get an x-ray I notice the lovely blood stain on the floor which has obviously been there for quite some time. hmmmm, ok.

Then I notice the extreme lack of cleanliness of this hospital. It was aweful! The floors and walls were terrible. Stains, dirt, disgusting.
I wouldn't want to go there for any time of major surgery.

Anyway, the Dr. looks over the x-ray and comes up with "not broken". That's great and I already knew that so WHAT is it?
He had barely any English and I barely have any Korean so I had no idea what he was saying to me. This sucked.
He ended up putting a half cast on my ankle and sent me on my way. I played some charades in attempting to get a pair of crutches but the nurse said "no, they don't have any".
Ok. I did come to a hospital right? you DON'T have crutches.

The main reason I came here is because it hurts to WALK! The walking boot you gave me isn't going to do me much good right now.

So after watching a drunk man, some poor kid get stiches and the nurse trying to stick a needle in my ass when I asked for a pain killer, I was on my merry way.
Home within an hour and in bed by 230am. I had to get up at 630 to go to the island school.

awesome.

So, I still don't know what's wrong with my ankle but on the positive it does feel better.

Maybe my school will feel sorry for me and I'll get to go home!

Taegeukgi

Taegeukgi is the name of the Korean flag.

A few weeks ago I had taken a lesson off of the waygook.org website where us foreigners can collaborate and share lesson ideas.

It's great for obtaining lessons when you really don't want to make one yourself or your brain is not coming up with any cool ideas of what to do in class.

This lessons has the teacher, me, go over the meanings of their flag which is quite beautiful I think. I have always loved the Korean flag when I was training Tae Kwon Do in Canada.

Now I will NEVER forget what each trigram means as I have taught it about 20 times already!

Anyway, after we go over the meanings and they make fun of how I say Taegeukgi, the students are to make a new flag as if they were the new president of Korea and the North and South reunited.

Here are some I like.

My favorite flag, which is a little hard to see, is the one where the Korean peninsula is eating the American and Japanese flags.

There were many flags that had kill Japan, Korea #1, Korea wins on it. It is quite clear the feelings Koreans, even young students, have for Japan.

While the boys were making their flags I played the ever popular Wonder Girls song, "Tell Me".

Before I took the picture, those boys were all up dancing to the moves of the video. It was hilarious.

Almost 3 months

In about a week or so I will have been back in Korea for 3 months. (I can count on my friend Samuel who always let's me know what week we're at)

When I decided to stay for another year I wasn't sure how it would turn out. Would all of those things that irritated me irritate me even more? would I start to dislike the job? the city?
Will I be really home sick?

So far, so good. I feel like this second year I am much more calm, accepting, focused and just more happy and content. I am trying to get more involved with the culture and learn the language and I am genuinely interested.
Things irritate me less and I smile more.

I love my apartment, I like my job and co-workers, I love my gym and do-jang and I have several really nice friends.

Overall things are just really good and I am really happy. I hope that most people can feel that way about their life, job and other stuff.

Tae Kwon Do in Korea

Being able to continue my training in Tae Kwon Do was one of the reasons I came here.

When the do-jang I had joined last year proved to be less than stimulating I was left feeling ummmmm, sad! And frustrated.

It felt as if you had gone to Canada to train hockey only to find out that the training was totally bunk and not even worth your time.

I only trained at that club for 3 months before I just quit. I'm not a fan of quitting so I was on the hunt for a new club. I asked my co-teachers, other Koreans I knew, wandered around my area peeking my head in at clubs and came up with nothing.

Finally, one day as I was walking home I noticed a flyer taped to a pole.

TAE KWON DO FOR FOREIGNERS!

blah blah blah blah, call blah blah.

So I called. I met this Korean army guy who was very nice and he took me to the club. I watched a class and met the master. The master is this cute little Korean woman who could most definitely kick your ass. But she's so darn cute!

So I joined and I LOVE it! The training is great and our class is mostly adults with the exception of 2 young brothers but for the most part they are great too.

The training reminds of the clubs I trained at in Canada and I almost always leave class soaked and wondering how sore I'm going to be the next day.

It makes me really happy to have found a good do-jang and to work towards something that I came here specifically to work on.

Next year I will test for my 2nd dan and I hope to compete in a tournament soon. I'm sure I'll get my ass kicked by some Korean but oh well. It will just be another experience!

Halloween in Korea

Finally I have some time to sit down and update my blog for those of you at home who actually read it.

Halloween in Mokpo was great. A big party was held at a local bar where most of the foreigners go to get drunk.

The "social committee" of Mokpo put up awesome decorations with prizes, 50/50 auction, carved pumpkins and lots of goodies.

It was one of the best Halloween parties I've been to in a really long time!

I went as an aerobics chick. Take your pick of what kind. An instructor, Jane Fonda, whatever. I was mostly trying to go for the Korean look of the aerobics woman who wear those shiny tights and leg warmers and wear make up while doing their pelvic thrusts in the mirror.

Bad Things

On my way to park my bike at my favorite tree this afternoon I heard a huge THUD!What the heck was that? Then some screaming. Oh my gosh, what!?I look to my left, to the busy street in front of my apt. block and see a young girl lying on the road.
I can see blood oozing from her head from where I'm standing. I threw my bike and groceries down and go over. What the hell am I going to do but I just went yelling at everyone on the way to call 119, fumbling for how to say those numbers in Korean which would normally come to me quite quickly.

The lady bus driver is over the young girl crying and crying. My brain went back to all of those boring weekends spent in CPR courses and first aid re-certs.1. 119 - Thank goodness everyone in Korea has a cell phone as when I hopped on the bus to tell people to call, everyone was on their phone already. good!2. Scene survey. Cars were actually trying to drive around the poor girl and me and the bus driver who were beside her.
Hmmmm do you think you could take a different F-ing route right now!!3. ABC's. She was moaning so she was breathing so that was good. Her front teeth had been knocked out and the frontal lobe of her head was gashed open and blood everywhere. I just tried to keep her from moving and in the "recovery position" in case she was going to vomit. I was trying not to vomit myself!She never did, and neither did I.
She tried to move around and was moaning but this other Korean woman told her to keep still.

FINALLY the ambulance arrives. It seemed like forever. By the time they arrived, her eyes had swollen shut.This poor girl.
Imagine, you are just crossing the street, doing whatever, going wherever and bam! Everything in your world changes. Think of this poor bus driver. Will she quit? get therapy? It was so aweful and I felt so terrible for these people involved.
We piss and moan about such trivial things so often, imagine you are hit by a damn bus!

I heard once last year, that something like 49% of all childrens deaths in Korea were due to pedestrian accidents.
So this was the excitement of my afternoon and definitely one of the worst things I've ever seen and felt. My insides are still shaking and I can't get it out of my mind.

Maybe I'll do some sort of safety lesson at school.