nervousness causes shrinkage, too

Another crazy weekend.. On Sunday, Adam and I walked down to the water and started the day by going "sea kayaking" (more like a canoe-kayak-kiddie boat thing). The last time I was on a sea kayak, I fell in and dislocated my shoulder- the most painful experience I've ever had- so I had a disproportionate amount of nervousness to get over. Of course, they didn't have any life jackets for the foreigners, either, so we went without. But at least now I can add "tandem sea kayaking in Korea" to my list of things done...

After that, we took a ferry to a nearby island, just to see what was there. We went to an old POW camp, which was used to house North Korean and Chinese prisoners of war during the Korean War. It was very interesting to see how large it was, and to get a glimpse of what life was like there. It also had some life-size figures of people using the bathroom, complete with genitalia and detailed feces...

We had a little trouble trying to navigate the island's nonsensical bus system in order to get from the city center back to where the ferry terminal was, so we ended up missing the last ferry out. Luckily we don't work mornings, so we were able to spend the night in a Korean sauna. My brother-in-law always talked about how great they were, so I've had it on my Korean to-do list. I always say: whenever something goes wrong, it just opens an opportunity for something else to happen, so I was happy to experience something I wanted to.

For about $7, we got to use the hot tubs, saunas, and we got the privilege of putting a blanket and a brick pillow on a hard floor and sleeping in a common area. I don't know if I've talked about Korean saunas here, so let me explain: it's a complex of hot and cold pools, saunas, steam rooms, and such. It's segregated by sex, and it's all naked. All of you know that I usually have no hangups with nudity (since everyone's seen me... halls of the hotel in Wendover-sober...haha), but for some reason the naked man stew made me uncomfortable. But I got over it.

After awhile, everyone left, and I had the place to myself. It was fairly relaxing, switching between the cold tub and the hot tub. I guess it's just something you gotta get used to. After that, we went to the sleeping area, which is just a floor with thin blankets and brick-like pillows, crowded with old Korean dudes. Slept peacefully (except for the dude with night terrors waking us up) until 6:30, when they decided to kick everyone out. We finally made it back to the ferry terminal and took the 8:30 ferry back home. Definitely an experience..