Westerners becoming Korean
There I am, standing by the subway door waiting for it to open. As the train approaches a foreign couple, say late 20s, walk up as well. I spy an end seat that has 3 spots open. Now everyone wants the end seat to have one less person sitting beside them so as I am technically closer to it, I should get it just fine. But wait….he pulls a Korean. By that I mean he starts pushing his way onto the train before everyone is off.
In a big city it seems the manners are tossed aside for the sake of a “me first” attitude. So here people push, shove, run just so they get there before anyone else.
So back to the seating.
As buddy rushes in he grabs the obvious end seat. His girlfriend whispers “good job” as if me being 12″ inches away won’t hear her.
I don’t buy the excuse that living in a big city is reason to ignore common decency. So let them be rude. It only hurts them. As for me, I’ll take comfort that Karma is a bitch amd they’ll wonder why bad things happen to them.
Topics: korea | No Comments »
Getting yelled at
So yesterday I got yeled at for crossing the street and not using the walk way. The Korean woman yelled at me, from 50ft away “Heyyyy!” Then mde a pointing gesture sweeping across the sidewalk just down the road. I smailled , shook my head and finished my road crossing.
Today I had an aujama who kept trying to look at something while going up the escalator. Why is significant? Well I just didn’t appreciate her perm, with greying roots, being with 2″ of my face. Koreans have no perception of awareness around them.
Topics: korea | No Comments »
Seeing a doctor in Korea
I rarely see a doctor. Not because I have anything against them or some weird aversion to the medical profession. I generally don’t get sick. Sure I am a little overweight , and being Korea has helped that due to all the extra walking one has to do to get around I have been slowly loosing weight but also gaining some muscle. So technically I am loosing weight be gaining mass :) just to clarify the difference. Your weight is what changes when you go to the moon but your mass stays the same.
Last month something happened to my knees. It is like I over worked them. I figured a few days of rest and it’ll be fine but therein lies the dilemma of being in Korea. There is much more walking, stairs to climb for exercise but what do you do when its your legs that need the rest? Unfortunately I do not have the luxury of sitting around for 3 – 4 days and do nothing. So the healing becomes a significantly slower process with the possibility of doing more damage without really helping at all.
While at a movie two nights ago, I was about halfway through I was getting some pretty severe pain in my right knee. To the point that I was considering leaving the film. If I could have just stretched out the leg I would have been fine but the seat in front of me only afforded me limited flexibility.
So I went to see a doctor. I have always been partial to alternative healing and I knew of a place near a Korean friend of mine that did acupuncture. My friend offered to help with the Korean. While they did speak English, they were better at explaining things in Korean and my friend explained in English.
The treatment went as follows:
First, I should mention that the bed, while somewhat stiff, was heated. Very comfy but only to a point.
The doctor placed four rubber suction-loke cups at various locations aroind my knee. These cups had lines attached to them and had sponge on their insides. The machine applied both a vaccuim and an electrical stimulus to the knee area. There was also an infrared lamp ovee the exposed knee as well. It was rather unique to experience such a treatment.
After about 15mins of the suction/electrical shock that varied in patterns my knee was feeling pretty good but we weren’t done yet. The assistant places a towel wrapped hot pack in my knee and leaves then the doctor returns jn about 5 mins or so.
NOW they brought out the acupuncture needles.
He put 5 of them around my knee then attached alligator clips wit wires to them. More electrical shocks to the muscles it seems. 15 more minutes with this. Feels a little more intense but not painful.
The assistant comes in and removes everything and informs me there is one more step! I am wondering how much more work can be done?! She tells me it wiill hurt a little but not to be concerned. I shrug, certainly won’t hurt more than what I have experienced from the pain in my knee a few days ago.
The doctor comes back and has a couple of weird things I’ve never seen. One of them looks like a hand pump and a little add on looks like a suction cup type of device with some gauze in it. There is another hand device but I can’t quite make out what it does. The staff is very good at not making it obvious. The doctor swabs an area just left of my knee and takes the other handheld thing and pricks my skin about 8 times in rapid fire strikes. Ok so that kinda stung. I watch the doctor place the ‘suction cup thingy’ over he area and then attach the hand pump, he pumped it a few times and then left for about 5mins. My leg bled slowly jnti it and the gauze was soaking up some of it. I just kinda watched with a bit of morbid fascination and was amazed that ‘leeching’ was still practiced on a daily basis.
The doctor came back, removed the suction cup thingy cleaned up my skin a bit and left the assistant to finish. I asked her what was the purpose of that and she it was too hard to explain in English(her english was pretty good).
Then they let me go. Since this proceedure was covered (and by that they mean mostly) by the Government, it only cost be KRW8400(about $8.40).
My knee did feel better and there is supposed to be a follow up for the next three days bit I have plans already so I’ll do it next week.
I was told that this is only a symptom of a larger issue which is not necessarily related to my weight. Who knows but I’ll be keeping an eye on things.
Topics: korea, Me | 2 Comments »
Growing old
I have found that the older I get, the less patience I have with people who are insecure or immature. If you do nothing but complain then I won’t associate with you. If you can’t go to a movie because your boyfriend might get upset, then I won’t associate with you. I really can’t stand people who can’t be themselves but have to try and be someone else FOR someone else. Madonna said it best in “Justify My Love”
“Poor if the person who’s pleasure depends on the permission of another.”
If you can’t be happy because of someone else who will be unhappy, then you have cut off your own soul. This become more and more obvious as the years go on.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
The Pirate Bay: ‘The Next Step in Copying Will Be Made From Digital Form Into Physical Form’ – Atlantic Mobile
I am sooo looking forward to a 3D printer!
Topics: New Stuff | No Comments »
