Tuesday, January 16, 2007

 

My Gym Story

So, I've signed up at the gym again. After a month of laziness, I decided that I should pull out my dusty gym clothes, and give working out another chance.

My first day back was this past Saturday. It was great...treadmill, cross-trainer, weights, stretching, ab exercises...Fantastic. I arrived at the gym feeling exhausted, and finished my workout feeling energized.

As I headed into the back locker room to pick up my jacket and lock up my gym shoes, I noticed that the air was slightly foggy. There was also a faint "smoke" smell in the room. Being the nosy person that I am, I of course wanted to know what was going on.

Sidenote: The gym manager and his wife actually live in the back room of the gym. I figured this out one day when I saw their laundry drying through the door that connects to the locker room, and smelled their lunch cooking in their kitchen.

Back to the present: having been trained in the fine art of fire safety from a young age (ie. get below the smoke level, stop-drop-and roll, etc.), I wanted to see if I could lend a hand. I went to the manager's apartment door and yelled out "Anyeong Haseyo" (hello)...then I yelled it a couple more times for good measure. No answer. I pushed open the door a bit and smoke poured out into the locker room. I did not panic...I kept my cool. Well, not really...the first thing I did was run away in search of someone else. Here was the problem: I couldn't find the manager anywhere, I couldn't find the manager's wife anywhere, and I had no idea how to say "Fire" in Korean to the one other man who chose to work out on a Saturday.

Running away was obviously not the best course of action, so I returned to the scene of the smoke. I pushed the door open a little more, and looked in. The smoke was pretty thick, starting at the ceiling, and coming down about 3 feet into the room. I looked over at the stove and saw that the gas was indeed on, and the pot on the burner was spouting out tons of smoke...the source. I ran over, turned off the gas, opened the nearest window, and searched the apartment for dead bodies. Fortunately, I found none.

With that, my work was done. Seeing as there was noone to discuss the fire with at the gym, I headed home. When I got home, I told Sam about my adventure. He congratulated my quick thinking, but then mentioned one little thing: in Korea, when companies are going bankrupt, they will often "accidentally" burn down the buildings in order to collect the insurance and bow-out gracefully.

I guess I'll never know if I'm a hero to the gym, or a hero to the insurance company. Either way...I'll just focus on the "hero" part :0)

I'm contemplating taking my new "gym fire safety" message on the road. Even coined this little slogan...thought of it all by myself!


Thursday, January 11, 2007

 

Outback Steakhouse!!

Proven fact: You will never truly know just how good a steak tastes until you've gone 6 months without one!! The reality that a piece of meat could be bigger then a mini-Snickers had pretty much left our minds. In light of that fact, we (Tim, Sam, Mel, and I) decided to take the subway ride into Suwon for a little "Outback Steakhouse" experience.

Koreans know how to make an Outback experience quite enjoyable. Yes, the wait was about 45 minutes. However, while we were waiting for our table, we were treated to free appetizer samples. A waitress came around and gave us mini chicken drumsticks to enjoy before our meal. The guys were especially hungry! The waitress gave us two little bowls with 2 drumsticks in each...one for each of us. Sam was sitting beside a Korean family who also received a little bowl of drumsticks. Just as the waitress put the bowl into their hands, their "reservation light disk thingy" (that's the technical name) went off. The mom stood up, put their bowl of chicken down on the ledge behind the bench, and walked about 6 feet to the hostess' pulpit. As soon as Tim saw the woman abandon her chicken, he leaned over and whispered, "Sam, she left her chicken...grab it!!". Sam reached over, took the chicken, and was just about to celebrate our great luck, when the woman turned around and started heading back for her chicken bowl. Awkward!! She looked shocked to see Sam holding her chicken, and Sam looked like he wanted the floor to open up and eat him alive! He quickly put her chicken down, she walked over, picked up the chicken, and pretended like nothing had happened. I'm sure her thought pattern was something like, "Crazy, no-good foreigners...coming in here and stealing my free chicken....". ("In my defense, she shouldn't have left it" - Sam...he wanted me to add that when he read this portion of the story)

Anyways, the rest of our meal went a lot smoother! I can honestly say we met the best waiter in Korea. His name was Huni (Hoo-knee), he looked like he was about 16 or 17 (see the picture below). His English wasn't perfect, and so we'd see him hovering around the corner from our table, trying to think of what he was going to say before he walked up. He got really excited over the littlest things. Example:
Huni: You want more bread?
Us: Yes, please.
Huni: More and more! Ya! YAAAA!
He brought us tons of bread with various dipping sauces. He filled our drinks, he frequently made sure we didn't need anything. The amazing thing is that there's no such thing as "tipping" in Korea, and so we knew he was genuinely awesome, and not just trying to score a larger percentage of the meal price for himself. At the end of our meal he walked up and asked: "You enjoy with me" (English teacher translation: Did you enjoy your evening with me as your server?). We ended up writing him a little thank you note so he'd know how much we defnitely "enjoyed with him".
We've decided to not let another 6 months go by before we head back.

Sam, Huni, and Tim. Huni looked a little scared when Sam and Tim stood up and he realized how much bigger they were then him.
Sam and I with our salad bowls. Our first salad in Korea that didn't come with either Mayonaisse & Ketchup, or peanut sauce as a dressing (Koreans can do food, but they can't do salads!!) (Sorry about the weird lighting...this was taken on Mel's phone camera cause we forgot ours)


Wednesday, January 03, 2007

 

More China Pics...

A few more pictures, for your viewing pleasure...

This pretty shot was taken at the Summer Palace. Even in winter, the grounds were gorgeous.
Here's Tim in front of a concrete paddle boat at the Summer Palace.
This was the Christmas tree in our hotel lobby. They definitely tried to create a feeling of Christmas for us westerners...they even had two Christmas carols that they would play on a loop in the hallways..."Frosty the Snowman" and "All I Want for Christmas" :0)
This was taken at the Silk Factory. The white stuff above the ladies head is the silk strands, and the little white balls at her elbow level are silk worm larvae. It was really neat to see the process of going from worm to silk blanket.
Soldiers marching in perfect formation outside the Forbidden City.

Quote from Sam when he saw this sign: "Ummm, I don't even know how to speak cellphone". Good thing it's STRICTLY prohibited when thunderstorm, eh!
The Jones boys trying to prove that the "Tourist Stops" signs couldn't hold them back.
I don't think Sam was too impressed with his Christmas Eve milkshake at McDonalds.




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