Tennis and Korean food

On Friday, Youna mentioned to me that she believed there was a tennis club at Ewha. That kind of came as a surprise as I could not find anything tennis related anywhere -- on the website, in the handbook or at the student club recruiting. I asked Youna if she had any idea how to contact them and she said she would get back to me.

Remember that little bit of information.

On Sunday, I was supposed to go to Lotte World with some international students. I was very excited about going back because I love that place. I was spending time with some friends at the dorms and I was up to around 2AM before going to sleep, meaning that if we left at the planned 8:30AM time, I would have 6 hours. That isn't too bad...I guess...

I woke up at 5AM with a horrible stomach pain. Like it felt as if I hadn't eaten for a couple days, but I had absolutely no desire to eat. I kept trying to get back to sleep over the following hour by drinking water and trying to relax. I couldn't do it. At about 6:15AM, I threw up...but didn't feel better at all. I felt that if I perhaps tried to have just a little food, I might feel better...that didn't work either and I vomited again around 7AM.

I had my alarm set for 7:45AM with the hopes that I could grab 45 minute of sleep before waking back up. After fifteen more minutes of stomach pain, I gave up and started moving around. I wanted to try food again with the hope that if I could keep it down, then I could still visit Lotte World and just be very careful on the roller coasters. I ate with mild success as I was able to keep down some crackers and banana milk. My alarm signaled it was 7:45AM and I started getting dressed and tried reading a little to get my mind off my stomach. At this point, I was still toying with the idea of going because I just love that place.

But by 8:30AM, I wasn't feeling energetic enough for an amusement park (how sick can you be not to be enthused for an amusement park?). I went downstairs to see if anyone else was meeting us and only found one other student who also felt a little sick. I told him that I wasn't going to go.

The food must have had a pretty good effect because I started feeling good enough to sleep. I thankfully passed out and woke up at 1PM with stomach pains, but a little more refreshed than I was before. I ate some noodles to help soothe my ailing stomach and then spent the rest of the day with the lingering affects of sickness.

This is going somewhere, don't worry.

It was getting close to dinner time and I hadn't had fresh air all day. Someone invited me to get dinner with a group and I felt it was a pretty good idea to go out and get some nutrients. The place that we were going to was a Korean all-you-can-eat barbecue.

Here have been the Korean restaurants that I have seen in Korea:

1) Very small family owned business. These places usually have about 10 tables and the food costs around $2-$5. They don't often serve hot food (hot as in temperature). Food is usually ordered separately but side dishes are shared.
2) Small family owned restaurants. These are essentially the same as 1, but they serve hot food as well. This is similar that each person orders his or her own dish and then shares side dishes.
3) Food is cooked at the table. These places are really cool! There are tables that have a heat source in the middle and food is cooked in that pan. One example is a Japanese food called (phonetically) shabu shabu. They have a pan of water, vegetables and noodles, and then depending on what meat is ordered, they will bring the meat off to the side. They boil the noodles and then whatever meat is added in at the pace of the diners. After all the meat is gone, there are usually some raw noodles that get added into the pot to cook. Lastly, the pot is emptied out by an employee (a little of the liquid is left) and then they add in rice. The purpose of this last dish is to burn the rice just enough to get crunchy taste, but not a charcoal taste. This meal has no individual dishes.
4) Korean barbeque. This was a new experience for me. There was essentially a table-top stove at each table where diners would pick which meats they wanted to eat and then cook it on the stove while at the table. In the back there were containers where the meat was stacked and then someone could just fill a plate with whatever they wanted. All you can eat. I need to stress that because a group of 13 hungry international students easily ate more than we paid. One person said it was the best meal she ever had and another said it was the greatest (the second person was only given two options: best or greatest. The first person came up with that answer on her own). It wasn't too great for me being sick and vegetarian, but everyone seemed to like the food. It was a little weird to see this guy from Belgium enjoying chicken feet, but it was funny to see the Swedish guy try it and have to leave the restauraunt to spit it out. He got back and said, "there were bones inside..." The octopus tentacles were also appetizing.

Lastly, since we had to bring our own food to the table, if there was any food left, the restauaunt would charge us about $5 extra. As everyone was nearly full, one of the guys from Germany brought back a huge plate of pig (no idea if it was bacon, pork or what the difference is) and started cooking it. At the end, we were cheering for two men at the end of the table to finish eating everything that was left. We spent a solid hour and a half there, with the last half cheering on the guys to finish eating. I didn't want to tell them, but $5 split amongst 13 people was pretty much nothing.

So starts Monday. I felt much better than I did on Sunday, but my stomach was still haunted from the previous day. I had no appetite from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep and I only ate because I felt I needed some form of sustenance. I eventually found some contact information for the tennis club, complimented with only two phone numbers (no email, no website) by which I was supposed to call to become enlightened on tennis at Ewha. I called the first number and the conversation went like this:

Me (I spoke in Korean, but text is in English): Hello?
Her: (something in Korean).
Me: I am Erik. Tennis?
Her: (something in Korean).
Me: Hello? Do you understand English?
Her: (something in Korean).
Me: I understand a little Korean.
Her: (something in Korean).
She hung up.

Hmmm...............

Some 30 seconds later, I got a text message...in Korean. I texted her back that I only understand English and then I wrote tennis again. A couple minutes went by and she texted me back with English saying "do u want to join us? what is your name?"

You read that right. In Korea, they enjoy destroying English with "ur" instead of "your." I sent a couple more text messages and I was told the tennis club was meeting at 6PM that night...which sucked because Tea Club started at 7PM. Explaining my prediciment over text messages probably would have yielded nothing productive except blissful confusion.

Skip to 5:10PM. I was reading some poetry and I get a call from someone at the tennis club. Her caller ID said "Carpe Diem :)." The person I spoke with talked to me in English and was able to explain details. At one point she said, "you know you will only be playing with girls, are you okay with that?" with her voice succumbing to a laugh near the end. Oh, she also said that they meet on Mondays at 5:30PM.

The tennis courts at Ewha are probably 3/4 of a mile away from my dorm -- and it is nearly all uphill. I changed quickly and grabbed my map to start my march across campus. I took a really long route and I arrived at like 5:35PM. As I entered the courts, EVERYONE stopped practicing to come see me. Like as I walked in, some 20 girls just stopped hitting to form a circle around me. It was a very interesting feeling...

The woman I spoke with on the phone welcomed me and asked me to introduce myself. I said my name is Erik (and they laughed at me...), I said I was American (they laughed at me) and I asked what else they wanted to know. I told them my major in English and the year I was born (Koreans pretty much always want to know someone's age because it determines how they will be addressed). It kind of sucks because everyone understood my English (except philosophy), and yet only like two people talked to me. I expressed that I would need to leave early and to confirm that it wouldn't be a problem.

The first drill was that two girls were feeding down the line to get everyone warmed up. I hadn't hit since January, so I felt really nervous because I could feel every eye on me. After all, I made up 100% of the white and male population. After each round with a feeder (about 20 balls or so), both people are supposed to bow.

It went really well. I played better than I thought I would. The courts were very interesting because they were not hard courts or clay courts. The only idea I have is that they might be a carpet-like surface. They were also covered with sand and debris, so hopefully players can slide like they do on clay.

I left at 6:20PM because I had to be back at the dorm by 6:40PM to meet the group going to tea club. I was also nervous because we need to take our shoes off when we arrive at the tea room and after the uphill battle to get to the courts amplified by tennis, I was briskly walking back to change to clean socks (my last pair...). I made it and everything went fine as we prepared to leave.

Originally, the Monday night meeting of tea club was the most important because that was the time that we spent learning about tea. Each week, we have a lecturer that talks about tea and tea culture, which sounded really cool, and we were told the lectures would be in English. We arrived a couple minutes late and our translator came outside to talk to us. She sadly said that this two hour lecture would only be in Korean and she was sorry for the mistake. Two hours each Monday...maybe fun for two weeks, but man, I was so relieved to hear that we couldn't actively participate. In fact, all four people I was with agreed that two hours each week at 7PM would not be the ideal Monday night. This also means that I can stay at tennis club the whole time each week!