Greetings...
I've actually got two main topics for today's post: my medical checkup and our visit to a Korean Folk Village. First, the funny one.
I showed up at the building where people were lined up to go through various medical checks: height/weight, vision, blood pressure, hearing, x-ray, blood and urine. I got through the first three without incident--it was the urine test that really ruined everything. We were instructed to not eat or drink for at least 6 hours prior to the test--I was a good little soldier and actually ended up going over 12 hours. In the morning, I completely forgot about the urine test and simply had my morning pee. As I was walking to the facility, I realized this but shrugged it off as I was confident that I could produce--I could not. I sat/stood in that bathroom stall for about 20 minutes coaxing the urine out to no avail. I decided that this just wasn't going to happen so I went back in the room and tried to explain my dilemma. I was informed that I could take the blood test first, then drink a bunch of water and hopefully get some honest to goodness urine in my cup.
So, I sit down for the blood test and this poor Korean nurse couldn't find my vein--either my veins are shy or I've got a couple layers of fat concealing them (the latter I'm afraid). She kept slapping my arm and rubbing it to find a place to stick my but, like my urine, there was nothing doing. I told her to "stick it in anywhere," but I don't think she understood. Finally, she found a spot and jabbed me. With that done, I was back into the bathroom after a number of paper cups of water. 20 minutes and a lot of "come ons" later, the cup was empty.
I went back into the room and we decided to do the hearing test in the meantime. Did I mention that I was the LAST person to be doing any of these tests and that this group of University doctors and nurses are all waiting in this room and wondering why I can't pee 2 inches worth into this Dixie cup? Yeah, this pressure was definitely adding to my lack of performance. Okay, so that being said, they had to go "back out to the car" or wherever they kept it and bring the hearing test machine back into the room. I aced the hearing test but this, ironically, did not help my urine situation. I drank about 10 more cups of water and went BACK INTO THE BATHROOM STALL!! I don't think I'll ever forget this bathroom stall--we totally bonded. Again, nothing was happening and I was just about frustrated. The counselor told me that I should just come and find her "whenever it happens" and we'll go from there. I went outside and took my x-ray in this bus they had set up and started walking back to the dorm. Not even 100 yards from the bus...I feel it...a tingling down there...could it be??...YES! I HAVE URINE!!
I ran back up to the building, went into the bathroom and peed the smallest but more gratifying pee of my adult life into my cup, ran upstairs, found the counselors room and handed it off to some nurse who left with it. I'm not sure if my urine found it's way to the proper authorities or if they remembered who it belonged to but all I care about is it's done.
Today, we had a field trip today to a Korean Folk Village. This is something like our re-creation of colonial villages that you'd take a junior high field trip to. It was cold but not nearly as cold as it's been the past couple days. It was cloudy and all the trees looked "winterized" (dead, no leaves) so it was actually kinda scary. I had visions of scary things lurking in the woods around us.
We had a brief tour of the grounds--our guide was a polite old man who had no qualms about explaining that in the past, people had to wipe their bums with folded up straw. He actually didn't say "bum," but "anus"--pronouncing it almost like Borat (ah-noose).
For lunch we had a skewer of pork and potato pancakes--and Cokes which we had to buy at a little store nearby. That's something we've noticed quite often here--the lack of drinks with meals and no napkins anywhere. The trouble is, more often than not, we eat soup and this is probably the food that requires a napkin the most. I can already tell that my soup eating skills have improved to negate the napkin.
We took a walk after lunch before the performances began (see below). We found ourselves walking out of an olde-tyme village into a second rate amusement park which was such a contrast, we thought we'd left the facility altogether.
We were treated to 4 traditional/cultural performances: drums, seesawing, tight-roping and horsemanship. You can find some photos below and a couple videos on my YouTube page http://www.youtube.com/solertia33. The Drum Performance was pretty cool--I made the comment to Rob that it's pretty fascinating that so many cultures use the drum in their traditional music. These guys had pretty snazzy outfits too--they looked like the original Hot Dog on a Stick uniforms. The girls on the seesaw were okay--they didn't get to the flips until the very end. The tight-rope walker was a bit boring--he'd walk across, do something cool, end up on the other end and then talk for a minute in Korean--then he'd repeat the process. It would have probably been much more entertaining if we'd understood him. The horse guys were cool--I know Mom would enjoy this part--all the jumping off of, running alongside of and doing handstands on top of the horses would probably remind her of her own experiences--except hers were accidents.
Well, that's it for now I guess. Until next time...
-Brent
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