I am a runner. I love to run but I hate cold weather. The winters in Korea are brutally cold so I have barely gone running outside for the past three months. Instead, I’ve been working out in the fitness center in our apartment complex. I haven’t done much running because I hate running long distances on a treadmill. I recently really started to miss the benefits of running so I had to decide, which do I hate more: running on a treadmill or cold weather.
There have a been a few days in the past couple weeks when the weather was actually above freezing (only by one or two degrees) when I decided to venture out for a long run. As you can see from the photo below, the only skin showing on my body was part of my forehead once I was bundled up. The awesome face mask is a Korean treasure I picked up from a street vendor 🙂 I seriously felt like a little kid putting on layers upon layers of clothing to go play outside in the snow. It all works well keeping me warm and comfortable on my long runs.
There is a little “respect game” that older Koreans seem to like to play on sidewalks. If two people are moving toward each other on a sidewalk, the person of lower social standing (generally the younger person) should show respect to the other person by moving out of their way. The “game” is that older Koreans will test this on purpose.
I’ve come across this more than a few times on my recent runs. I’ll be running down the sidewalk and an older Korean will deliberately move into my path, expecting me to show them respect by moving out of their way. Well guess what old Korean, if you are going to deliberately move into my path, I WILL RUN YOU OVER! Don’t get me wrong, I try to be respectful to everyone I come into contact with but I refuse to play this ridiculous game.
It happens often… I can recall three instances in the past two weeks. My favorite instance of this was on my last run. There was an old man who saw me coming and moved onto my side of the sidewalk. I kindly moved over. But then he moved over AGAIN to get into my path. Really?! I waved and yelled “Get out of my way!” but he didn’t move, so I plowed into him and then mentally gave myself a high-five.
Funny thing is, I know I’m going to miss crazy stuff like this when we move out of Korea 🙂