July, pt. 1

July has been a pleasant and eventful month, and as such, it has whizzed by. Independence Day ushered in the month with a distinctive lack of a bang: this is the first year ever that I haven't been sitting outside watching fireworks for the Fourth. Not that I expect anyone else to celebrate America's birthday, but I did feel a slight nostalgic twinge thinking of my friends back in Idaho sitting on top of their various four-wheel-drive vehicles with a PBR and the old red, white and blue raining down from the sky...however, when offered the chance to spend the day at the Army base listening to a Deana Carter concert witht the troops, I declined. I ended up spending the night at a reggae bar in Seoul, then drinking Hite, my subpar Korean beer of choice, on the playground with my Special Friend. All in all, it was a good night.

I messed up my knee again with an ill-timed backflip in hapkido. Fortunately (or maybe not?), it wasn't the knee I hurt skiiing over New Years, but the other one. In a sad twist of fate and joints, my bad knee has become my good knee, as my performance standards dropped across the board. Here's how that went down:

Master gets out the blue padded mat, runs a few steps and flips in midair, kicking his feet over his head and landing in a silent ninja roll, then looks at me, and gestures for me to try. "Alli, you," he says.
"I don't think I can do that," I say. I do not generally suffer from a lack of confidence, but this seems like a time to tell the truth.
"Alli, yes!" he says, emphatically. "You, ninja."
He's right, I think. I AM a ninja. So I run, and I jump, and I kick, and OH MY GOD THAT'S NOT HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO!! So I landed on my left knee and it was terrible. Because I have my own health insurance for the first time ever, I went to see the doctor, who gave me painkillers and a brace, and I lurched around class like I had, as one kid said, a "robot leg." I told them I had knee pain, and felt old. Master felt pretty bad about overestimating my ability as a ninja. "I worried," he said. "In hapkido, you are my student. Outside, you are my sister." Awww. So, I took a two-week hapkido hiatus, and it feels better now. The only time I have problems are when I'm at a restaurant, sitting cross-legged on the floor, which is essentially torture to a person with two bad knees...

The next weekend, every foreigner in Korea headed to the coastal town of Boryeong for Mudfest, which is exactly what it sounds like: mudslides, beer, mudcrafts, beer, mud wrestling, beer, mud masks, and beer. Needless to say, it was a blast. And for the record, I'd like to state that I kept it classyish and stayed away from wrestling of all sorts. I met up with my Special Friend there, who had demanded that I meet his best friend that weekend. As a woman, I'll admit that there's a slight part of me that wishes my first impression for the Bro Test hadn't been made while I was literally covered head-to-toe in mud, but...at least I didn't come off haughty.

read on for part 2...

written by  alli_ockinga on July 28, 2009 from Inch'on, South Korea
from the travel blog: I go Korea!
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