chicken legs

As I may or may not have already said, fall has fallen in Korea. Fall air smells different. It feels different. It is different. My body knows this, and every year after the first time I walk outside and smell that fall scent, I start channeling my inner bear. I want to eat everything in sight and hibernate. Unfortunately, eating everything in sight costs money, and I need a job to get money. Hibernation is not an option. I have to settle for sleeping as much as possible when I am not at work. So needless to say (especially combined with the fact that unless there are skis and snow under my feet, I hate cold weather. I hate cool weather. Warm weather is nice. Hot weather is perfect), getting up for those AM runs is getting harder and harder. My runs are becoming fewer and fewer. I'm a summer runner, and I'm ok with that. But, in the interest of not gaining back the France weight I have lost, as well as not gaining any Korea weight, I decided to start going to the gym here. So tonight, despite wanting nothing more than to put on my pajamas and drink hot chocolate, I got home from work, changed clothes, and headed to the gym by my apartment. Having read a lot negative about Korean gyms, my expectations were low. But honestly, it wasn't that bad. I felt slightly scandalous in my tank top (bare shoulders!), and the machines were all slightly ghetto. But otherwise, it was fine. And working out in a gym for the first time in over a year felt awesome. I am going in on Saturday to get a membership.
There was one major difference about the Korean gym though. Asian guys are little. Average height is probably just slightly lower, but by little I really mean scrawny. I thought maybe if there was a Korean guy with big arms I would find him at the gym. Because at home, it is impossible to go to any gym without seeing at least two juiceheads. Nope. Not a single beefy gym rat in the pack. There were a lot of guys working out, lifting weights, etc. But they looked like a jr. high school basketball team's B squad rather than Bowlflex spokesmen.

Last weekend I went to Suncheon, a smallish (200,000 peeps, so not THAT small, but relative to Seoul) town on the southern coast of Korea. Suncheon is known for its bird sanctuary, with fall being the peak season. While at school a few days ago, I wrote all about the weekend. In order to not have my blog address saved on the school computers, I wrote it in Word, and then I was just going to email it to myself. Everything on the computers at work is in Korean. It makes doing really basic things a lot more challenging. SAVE AS didn't work. My blog is forever lost. So here is the condensed version, plus a few pictures.

The original plan-have an early night on Friday, and take the 9:30 bus Saturday morning. Arrive at Suncheon around 3 pm. Explore, go to the hot springs, see a temple or two.
What actually happened- Early night fail, me and my travel buddy found ourselves eating kebabs, chilling on the sidewalk around 5 am. We got home shortly after 5:30. We both slept through our alarms and missed our bus. So we took one that left at 2:40 instead. We got in shortly before 8.
Our hotel was in the middle of NOWHERE, outside of the city, very peaceful, but nothing to do. After checking in, we wanted food, so the lady at the front desk called us a cab to bring us back into town. It never showed up. But the front desk lady had ordered food for herself, and when she went outside to meet the delivery guy, she was shocked to see us still standing out in front of the hotel waiting. She ordered into the backseat of the delivery car, and asked him to drop us off in town. So we rode to town with this delivery guy, in his padiddle with what sounded like no muffler.
We woke up early Sunday morning in the hopes of getting to the bird sanctuary before it became overran with people, except we didn't know where to go, and the one hotel employee was not to be found. We just started walking. We actually found it pretty easily. What we did not find was any of the 140 species of migratory birds that were supposed to be there. But it was a lovely park.
We also went to Naganeupseong Folk Village. I wasn't sure how I felt about going, but we had several hours before the bus left, so I thought what the heck. WHOA. It was so worth the long taxi ride out there, and the questionable bus ride back to Suncheon, and then getting completely lost in Suncheon trying to find the bus terminal. People still live there, and it was probably one of the coolest things I've seen.
AND, it is harvest season. Once outside of Seoul, I got to see Korean combines. They are like miniature versions of American combines. And even weird than the mini combines, they put all of their grain on long black pieces of cloth, laid out on the sidewalk, road, wherever was paved.

At Suncheon Bay Bird Sanctuary, bird population- zero

Naganeupseong Folk Village

People still call it home

Kimchi pots! That picture is for you, Mom!

Preparing for the changing of the guard ceremony

One person was kind of interested

Even folk villagers need cuddly companions

Every garden needs old teapots

Almost unreal, and slightly touristy, a perfect combo.