sour cream parties and my convulsing leg

I never thought I would ever get excited about sour cream, but it happened. It's pretty funny, but also sad since this is what my life has been reduced to. My excitement comes from soured milk. Now, to those of you who see sour cream on a regular basis in your local grocery, this may seem quite odd to you. Considering it hasn't been all that long since I've seen sour cream myself, it still seems a bit odd to me as well. Those of you who have not set foot on Canadian/American/Real World soil for over a year, you hear me loud and clear. Finding sour cream is worthy of excitement. It falls on the worthy of excitement chart right there under cheese, real mayonnaise, and marshmallows (cheese you can also find, but it's a pain in the rear end, marshmallows and mayonnaise.....forget it).

Another teacher from my school, Devon, has a Costco card, and in Korea this translates into him being a God among the foreigners. It is Devon who is able to enter the Costco in the neighbouring city of Daegu a 45 minute train ride away and find the western foods we seek. I also have a Costco card, don't tell anyone though, with great power comes great responsibility.....i.e. people bugging you all the time to go to Costco. So, Devon and his roommate Drew went to Costco and, long story short, after they bought everyone in Gumi cheese (at 10,000 won a pop, about $13!!), they happened to stumble across sour cream, and a mother load of it. Everyone knows Costco, we all know that when buying things there, you buy them in bulk. Picture the sour cream, it's huge.

Devon took the bait, bought the sour cream and headed back to Gumi (with a ton of cheese, a massive box of Oreo's and other goodies in tow). What do you do with a load of sour cream that big? Well, here you invite your friends over and have nachos (with REAL cheese on them) and dip them in sour cream, savoring every bite. Now, nachos have always been a staple at gatherings I've attended, and the more I think about this as I write, the more mundane this story is sounding. It's just, I guess maybe you had to have been there to understand the full emotion attached. I mean, we were near screaming, there was jumping involved and quite the debate over how we really should approach the sour cream issue. Should we make a dip with it? Or leave it in its natural state? Should we have nachos? Or make something else? Just what should we do with the sour cream? It would have to be worthy, we definitely couldn't fall short on such a momentous occasion! Looking back, it really was an odd conversation. The decision in the end was unanimous. The obvious course of action was nachos. It was the best of both worlds. We got to use the sour cream AND the cheese. We were going to make grilled cheese sandwiches as well and dip them into the sour cream, but well....we didn't want to seem crazy or anything.
In the end, everyone was fully satisfied. There still is sour cream left, I'm not quite sure what's going to happen to it. I know that I now have a huge block of cheese sitting in my fridge, as does my roommate. I've been told that cheese freezes well, we will see. Oh, the oddities that I will become accustomed to.

This weekend a few friends and I also trekked our way to Daegu, stopping on the way in the small city of Waegwan. There are quite a few touristy stores in this city due to the fact that there is a big American Military base there. Walking around the base it almost felt weird to see so many other non-Koreans. I'm not sure if it was a good feeling or not. It mainly just felt out of place. Even the shop owners spoke English really well. I've become adjusted to being stared at, and become adjusted to being the tallest one I can see (and I'm 5'9"). We did our shopping and headed back to the train station to continue on to Daegu. After almost hitting my head on the door frame on the train I found my seat. The four of us were lucky enough to have bought tickets together, two of us facing the others. We were immediately bothered by some old Korean lady asking us the few simple questions she knew in English. This is a commonality. They love talking to us. They love staring at us. Especially if we are Canadian. Generally the first question they ask is our nationality. As soon as they hear Canadian they don't shut up, even if we can't understand a word they're saying. It's pretty mean, but we had to ignore her after awhile. There's only so long that you can smile and nod, especially if you do it most times you're out somewhere.

The general population doesn't really like Americans. I mean, they won't be outwardly rude to them, but they are notably happier once they find out we're Canadian. I feel bad sometimes for the Americans in our group. One of the girls we were out with, Julie, is an American. She's really nice, a good teacher and a good person. It sucks that she's judged based on her nationality. Usually she just sits tight, the Korean assumes she's Canadian as well and keeps going. It's just not worth trying to explain otherwise.

Anyways, the train ride was coming to an end and we got up to leave. The trains are really crowded. Picture a downtown Vancouver bus during rush hour, people in seats and the aisles crowded as well. You get out of your seat well before the train actually reaches the station so you're certain you'll be able to get off at your stop. So, as we were standing waiting for the train to stop, I had my first petting experience. I know I'm white, I know I'm tall, I know I have blonde hair, but don't pet me ok? Don't rub your hand up and down my arm and touch my hair. I don't care if we're standing so close together that we're practically one person, don't touch me. The lady first rubbed my arm, then she started hitting me. Fun times. Here's this old lady talking to me in Korean, rubbing my arm and now assaulting me. I believe that once she was finished oggling me, her plan had been to get by me. I really don't know where she planned on going, since there was no room, but she was determined to try anyways.

This country makes no sense to me. It's always in a rush, always pushy, always rude. It gets very annoying at times. I had enough. This country can be so bloody annoying. I put my Canadian upbringing on hold and reverted to my newly acquired Korean personality. I turned around, stood up to full height (at least a head taller than the woman) looked down on her, glared and grunted. It felt so primitive. It worked, but come on. This society has been around for way longer than mine, and I have to revert to grunting in public?

The train ride behind us, and the laughter at me subsided, we headed into Daegu for dinner. The plan was relatively simple. Eat at TGIFridays and head home. My roommate Marnie has been in Korea for close to 3 years. I wasn't really in need of some good western food, but she really was. The trip to Daegu for dinner was a nice break, but also a necessity for her. Afterwards, Julie and Kathi stayed for a movie (most of the movies are the movies we have back home, and they're in English, they just have Korean subtitles, sweet eh?). Marnie and I headed home. I wasn't in the mood for a movie, my knee was hurting and I just wanted to go home.

Speaking of my knee, it is almost better. I'd say we're at the 90% mark. It definitely didn't like me all that much after walking around Waegwan and Daegu then the next day wandering around downtown, but the pain is manageable. Physio is still interesting. Note the title of this entry. Yes, you guessed it, this is where the latter part of the title is explained. Part of my therapy involves the use of an ICT (Interference Current Therapy) machine. What this machine does, and I'm assuming here, is sends currents of electricity through my knee. There are four different suction cups placed at various spots on my knee and they vibrate. The nurses have been increasing the intensity everytime I've gone there, but today it reached the peak of what I can handle. It wasn't painful, but was near it. Usually I just lay back and relax, read a book while my knee is gently massaged. Today I seriously sat straight up in the bed and watched as my foot flew to one side and started convulsing. It didn't feel good, but it didn't feel bad. My whole calf was tensing and relaxing and my knee was twitching. My guess is that it's stretching and relaxing my tendons and this is turn must heal them or something. I have no idea and since no one speaks any English, they can't explain anyways. It didn't hurt at all afterwards and it seems to be helping. I'm not complaining, it was just really weird and unexpected. I need to stop being surprised by the weird and unexpected.

Well, I think that's all for now. I'm doing good, enjoying life and laughing myself through it all.
Take Care everyone!
Cheers