Ramyeon callouses.

The second week of the new year has been non-significantly eventful, with the following happenings:


a) Dinner with a group of running friends
b) The cancellation of my next goal race
c) A run-in with an ajumma who made me cry
d) work work work. Work.




a) Dinner with a group of running friends. 
My fellow maritimers, Ian and Kylene had a few of us over for dinner the other night.  With an average of one bottle of red wine per person, it was an enjoyable evening with an average of 1.5 red wine spills per person.  

note the runner's world/cdn running tablecloth.

We followed the delicious meal with a game of ' Catch Phrase' which got more than a little heatedly competitive - something that can probably be expected at a table of runners. 
This game somehow morphed into a challenge of "Asian Squat-off 2011" , which in turn became "Who can pick up the small naked Santa Claus with only one leg on the ground?''. 
Both games were difficult but provided  a good hour of simple entertainment. 

a contender for asian squat champ.

He may seem harmless, but try picking him up with your teeth, and both hands behind your back.

b) Cancellation of my next race. 

Sad news came on Saturday when I came home and Tim told me he had 'bad news' which he couldn't even bear to tell me.  

After checking facebook, I found out that the next scheduled race, February 20th, where I had planned to run the half marathon, is 'indefinitely post-poned'.  We all know what that means. 

When I searched for a reason, the translation of the race website gave me the following extremely clear explanation:  

"Marathon mania everybody! of the entire country

The 8th Milyang Arirang Marathon last year the foot and mouth disease which was generated the hesitation of truth, to be diffused with national, not to reveal Indefinite postponement, decided.

At the Milyang Arirang Marathon propulsion briefing room in order protection the chaos of friend of same taste everybody's consequently, few"

Enough said.  

c) Run in with ajumma.

One morning this week, as I was on my way home from my run, I was stopped by an ajumma blocking by path and yelling in Korean.  This is not an overly rare occurrence and I would usually have brushed past her, except that she was holding a bag of garbage in one hand, and in the other hand she had some small, familiar looking pieces of paper.  

When I looked closer ( because she shoved her hand in my face), I saw that what she was holding were:  a post-it note with our friend's phone number, Tim's boarding pass from our Jeju trip, and an old grocery list.  She also had an empty popcorn bag. 

I, for the life of me, could not figure out what these 4 things had in common, or why they were so incriminating. She refused to give them back to me and would not stop yelling until I picked up the bag of garbage and took it back to our apartment.

As I collected my thoughts, I realised that the crafty ajumma had disgustingly searched through our garbage, looking for evidence of the culprit who had left the bag.  The papers she had shoved in my face were proof that it was MY garbage

(the only foreigner/english person in the  vicinity).  

Realising this didn't make it any easier for me to accept that a total stranger had just yelled at me for five minutes. Tim came home and, upon seeing my red eyes, busted outside to give the woman a piece of his mind.  

After all was said and done, 2.5 confrontations later, we finally understood that our garbage needs to be put in a certain area (between a concrete wall and 2 parked cars, of course... how could we not know that?) and must be in a specifically labelled garbage bag.  

Fwef! Never thought garbage disposal would be a thing I'd miss from home.

d) work work work.

Tim and I are both doing extra projects for our school, in addition to working overtime every week for the entire month of January.  There are extra classes this month for the kids because they are on vacation from regular school and couldn't possibly be allowed to have any free, non-studying time on their hands.  

I'm also still doing a class on Saturdays, so the weeks are busy, busy busy but are flying by for sure. 

That is all for today, as the aforementioned work is calling.... but there will, inevitably be more to come. 

 a break from work to make some creepy chili.

Happy Sunday!