On weight loss in Korea

Every orifice of my being is getting bombarded with World Cup information. World Cup sports drinks, World Cup t-shirts for sale at my local mart. World Cup ads on every YouTube video ever. It's funny because I never knew to equate life insurance with soccer until I had to sit through 30 seconds of your advertisement. So thanks for that.

I hate you.

With the Korean countryside getting hype about sports, I was reminded that it was time to get active again. I'd gained some, let's say....kimchi weight from simply living in South Korea.

What is kimchi weight? Well, no worries, it has nothing to do with the actual food kimchi- which happens to be full of healthy ingredients and is just spicy cabbage. Rather kimchi weight is gained by all the things you eat in Korea along with the sometimes delicious, sometimes not kimchi.

Case in point. At lunch the other day we had rice ~400kcal worth, kimchi 30kcal, soup ~150kcal, and SWEET AND SOUR PORK ~a bajillion kcals. Kimchi and soup and a moderate portion of rice actually make for a fairly healthy lunch, however, at school there always seems to be something breaded, fried, and covered in sauce.

I would go so far as to argue that typical Korean food is not that healthy for you. Sure, there are plenty of exceptions, and you can always make a meal out of the heartier soups. However, when eaten like a Korean, with all the rice on the side consumed, every side dish devoured, and some sweet beverage to wash it all down, these meals pack a heavy caloric punch!

I can honestly say I am baffled by how steady Korean weight seems to be. Some of my older teacher beast out in lunch and yet maintain a slim size 4 throughout the year. I know they eat outside of school! Ah well, this isn't "Cosmos" and I'm not here to solve the mysteries of the universe.

(theme music)

The point at hand is how to lose weight while living in Korea. I'll do more in depth posts about working out and what to actually eat, but for now I'll leave with the simple suggestions of:

1. Not eating all the rice you're given. The servings are kind of outrageous and most of the time unnecessary. Try to eat rice moderately, and after eating other parts of your meal.
2. Exercise. Won't delve too deep in this one because it's mostly self explanatory. A simple walk after work would suffice, or you can do like me and try your hand at taekwondo. 
3. Drink plenty of water. This is probably the most important step. I haven't willingly drank juice or soda in about 5 years. If I did it was literally the only option at the time, or I needed some electrolytes after a rough weekend. 

delicious and dangerous

That's all for now, I'm sure I'll have more to say on the subject and I will explain how to join a taekwondo club in the future.

Much love
Imani

On guest posts

Hey all! Recently I wrote a little ditty on my friend K's page. Check it out if you get a chance, and while you're there please read some of her other posts-she's a funny gal!

http://katherineteacher.blogspot.kr/

Much love
Imani

On midnight hikes

There are several universal truths regarding life in Korea, and one of them is: when your taekwondo instructor tells you to go hiking at midnight, you go hiking at midnight.

Let's back up a little bit, shall we? The day was Friday, and like all Fridays, it was just barely tolerable. Five 6th grade classes in a row is enough to drive anyone to "happy hour". This Friday was different, though, because I had been told to meet at my taekwondo studio at 8 pm for a casual BBQ party. 

8 pm came along and I showed up in gear (long taekwondo robes) for the party. wrong move. Turns out that despite what my Sabeom said, it was casual wear.

8 30 pm returned to the party in casual clothes and sneakers. It was a little awkward at first because these are a bunch of Korean teenagers and I'm a mid-twenty year old American woman and we really don't have that much to talk about. When we're all practicing taekwondo it doesn't really matter that we don't talk that much. We mostly just race each other and fight. Communication is much easier when it comes to sports.

On top of that, the language restriction kept the topics we could discuss to very superficial levels such as:

"Oh you like Big Bang?"

"Yes, teacher"

"I like 2PM"

"Yes, teacher" (giggles)

If the actual food wasn't as delicious at it was, I'd call the night a bust. However the food (charred beef slices, kimchi, greens, rice, and soda) was delicious and helped to break the ice a little bit. Now we were having three sentence conversations! Just kidding, but not really.

Around 11 pm my taekwondo instructor tells us to get into the van.
I had heard mumbling about hiking before, however, I thought it was a miscommunication due to language barriers. I mean, how can you hike at midnight? It's dark, cold, and a sure way to end up on "I Shouldn't Be Alive".

how appropriate.

But, climb into the van we did, and hiking we went.

It took about an hour to get to Palgok mountain, and from there we basically walked up 1,000,000 stairs until we reached the top. I won't bore you with the details of walking, just know that there were a lot of people there, and the paths were well lit with street lamps. 

When we got to the top we took the obligatory photos of us and Buddha, which my taekwondo instructor said was built "one thousand years ago" which I think he meant just a long time ago. In addition, there were scores of older Koreans paying homage to Buddha and praying. There was a tape recording of some chant (in Korean) that synced up to the prayer movements that the Koreans were doing. It was pretty interesting to watch, and I was completely surprised by the amount of people participating.

When we came back down the mountain we all celebrated with various colas and fruit juice drinks we bought out of a shady (maybe because it was night?) rest stop. At this point everyone was tired and sleepy, the teenage boys (and girls) ready to head back home.

Yay! we didn't die!

When we got back to Seobu, the three girls came over to my house to take a shower before spending the night at the studio. It was really fun to have a house (room) full of girls giggling and gossiping, even if I couldn't understand everything. One of the girls is in love with my brother, Nathan, after seeing his picture on my facebook page. Apparently his big eyes and soft features make him super "kee-yo", or cute.

Despite the lagging exhaustion from walking until 3 am, I'm really happy that I got the chance to do something that wouldn't have happened without help of my Korean friends. Now, I just need to find something equally as "fun" to share with them...maybe a pig-pickin'? 

suggestions?

Much love,

Imani