Flight

Okay, before this story, I should probably explain the "zoo exhibit" thing a little more. Not only are white people an anomaly around here, white women my height and size running up the street at 6:30 in the morning are even MORE of a shock and surprise. So not only are folks watching me, they are staring. Like, "what is that thing?" kind of staring. Once I get to the park, all the ajummas (grandmas) in their white gloves and windbreakers in incredibly hot and humid weather just kind of look at me like I'm a run-of-the-mill weirdo as they walk up hills backwards, but really, we kind of accept that we are all a bit strange, and their looks are more out of interest than objectification, anyway.

So, at the gym last night, there were three of us - all white women - in a fairly small area, and two of us are reasonably strong and close to being the tallest people in the whole place. Once the poor guy at the front desk finally figured out what we wanted, we were good to go, and the guys who worked there were very nice and friendly. We were most definitely subjects of intense interest, but not in the same way as the people on the street. This was a lot less... Insulting? Invasive? I'm not really sure of the word I want here. It was a lot less. Not zoo exhibit. They were more impressed than anything else, and some of the women were laughing WITH us as we played around on this twisty little ab thing for fun as we finished up. (also, they have - and use - those vibrating belt things that shake your fat around. Yeah, I tried it. There may be pictures taken on a return trip, just for documentation purposes...)

Tonight, it was a little different. We went in earlier, and I was the only one really lifting - my friend was only doing rehab-type work. The older man who I guess is the manager was there, and I am still trying to refine the switch to kilos instead of pounds and adjusting for the weight of the collars that hold the weights on the bars, so I have to think and sometimes try to move something that is a little bit heavier than I expected. He kept coming over, wanting to adjust things (the height of the rails or the pins, adding collars, stuff like that) and then had one of the younger men follow me around the whole time I was there to keep me from hurting myself, I guess. It was a lot less fun, there wasn't the same sense of... normalcy maybe? of community or something. Just me being the weird foreigner zoo exhibit again.
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A friend I and wandered around downtown tonight, and went into TGIF's for a drink. In there, we met the Canadian who runs the ex-pat bar in Gwangju. He told me that he would be able to make me tortillas when I got desperate. He may be my new best friend.