To create more commerce and more community to the Continental Divide, America created railroads. All along the passage from East to West you find railroads. The East might house more subways and mass transit, but it is in the small towns of the West that you find the seemingly endless tracks.

My town in particular was a transit spot from Chicago to Seattle. Railroads made the town and my grandfather made the railroads. My father and mother both from the West of the Great Divide lived near a railroad and as small children could only fall asleep to the sound of distant train whistles. I too grew up near the tracks. My window faced a lake and the tracks were in the distance.

These tracks were always something that filled me with curiosity and fear. Late at night, when only the grasshoppers spoke, the whistle would blow and I would know that it was 3:35 a.m. If I was restless, I would always imagine what was in the cargo of the train. Could it be tons of chocolate milk cartons that would be on the lunch tables of my school? Could it be a hobo coming from Seattle to make a new life for him or herself in Chicago or was it a crazed serial killer –Angel Maturin was the famous ‘train killer’ of the 90s-- coming from the south ready to snatch and steal the kids living near the tracks?

When I moved from the tracks to go to college, I found that I couldn’t fall asleep as easily. I missed the sound of the iron pedals pumping to their location, the echo of a lone horn in the night, and the crickets among the grass. Mostly, I missed the thought that if things got really bad I couldn’t hop the train to a new place across the line that divided the relaxed from the uptight and separated Broadway from the Pacific. During my college years, I found other people fascinated with the tracks.

Some of my friends, all male, even decided to ride the rails down to California. They would clothe themselves in the perfect hobo masquerades, trading their well-educated speech for the peasantry slang in a Steinbeck novel. They would do this during Spring Break when I would flock to Florida or Las Vegas, any place that got me out of the Oregon rain. I would come back with a tan and they would come back with stories of how they were able to con train pirates and how the wind felt when you road on top ar’ train. The stories grew from jokes to legends and tactics for the future comrade who needed instructions on how to escape the FBI, while riding through the Red Woods.

In those two weeks, they had more adventure than I had growing up near the tracks. I was envious, not only that they had enough courage to go through with this, but that they would risk their lives to do something I had only dreamed about: entering a train cubby to ride to the next town, not really knowing where that next town was or who you might run into in one of the miscellaneous train cars.

Don’t worry mother, I’m not going to hop a train here in Korea, but I do think that life is worth taking risks.

The train tracks in the picture once tied South Korea to North Korea. They were blown up and all connection between the 38^th parallel were lost. There are no free spirits that hitch a ride from Seoul to Pyongyang on a whim to visit a friend or just merely to see what stars look like on top of a train as it zooms through the night. Instead there is an empty passage way. There is a stop of a dream.

The tracks seemed to be like any I had seen and it reminded me of how connected we are in this world and how easy it is to end these connections. How we can get close, but sometimes cut all ties. We fear the tracks that are meant to make us united. In lieu of all the news going on between the South and North, I think these tracks will be mended again. I hope that one day a young Korean girl living on the boarder will be able to hear the train at night and dream about all the magical lands that she can travel to just over the 38th parallel... If she could just jump on the next train.

When old men act like children and your food moves...

Just another beautiful day in Korea. My smile simply will not fade from the glorious day I had at an island near my town.

It began with hiking up cliff faces and crags to see the beautiful sea of my town. Picture below:






We experienced our own adrenalin pumping playtime by racing one another up cliff faces and almost falling to our doom:







A quick detour was made when my companions and I heard old men giggling like little school boys and drinking too much, but just enough Soju (traditional Korean alcohol). Nothing beats old men and board games for a way to put a smile on your face and feel at peace with your own aging:







And for dessert, we had raw fish that was brought to our plates still moving. Yummm, the smell of the salty sea:







I just wanted to share this adventure with you all as it made me so happy!!!

Bear Claw

Bear Claw (noun):
A term coined by the Sandpoint Tennis Team circa 2003 in reference to a ball that bounces over the fence or walls which surround a tennis court, after the player has just CRUSHED an over-head.

Derivation:
From the glazed donuts found in the bakery section of any given Safeway. Like the glazed doughnut, the 'Bear Claw" is in fact... delicious.

Example:
Well, just picture this...
Nadal, Spanish colored (not the archaic word used to describe African Americans, but in fact the feelings and wave lengths exuded during a Spanish film) tennis player, verse Murray, ugly English bloak, at the Australian Open 2010. It's the second set in a game that's not in favor of Nadal. Nadal is pissed, exhausted and utterly hot. Murray (struggling for the ball) hits a half ass lob, in an attempt to go over the well positioned Nadal.

ACCESS DENIED.

Murray was not able to surpass the 6 foot something Spaniard and instead hit it at a perfect angle for the notorious Bear Claw. With one graceful hit, Nadal was able to Bear Claw at the Australian Open.

End of Story:
Nadal had some knee injuries in the third match and inevitably lost to Murray. But in the world of tennis, the only thing that really matters is the "Bear Claw." In the eyes of many and the hearts of the strong, Nadal came out victorious.

Also, I would like to say that I thank the Lord everyday because my gym finally is playing the tournament and I can finally stand something on Korean television.

Ragdoll and Baby

Ragdoll and Baby Simultaneously

Fellow blog patriots,

Sorry I haven’t written in awhile. I have been very busy here in Korea. I’ve picked up several hobbies: rock climbing(very big sport in Korea), learning to play the ukulele' yoga' Taekwondo(Soon I’ll be able to break wooden boards with my hands and fists),and trip preparing(I’m taking a much needed four day vacation to Japan for skiing in February).

Along with these very dangerous hobbies, I have also been assimilating to the Korean lifestyle:

1.Kimchi Maniac. If I don’t have kimchi at least once a day, I immediately contract a cold.

2.Workaholic. Vacations are a thought of the past. The longest vacation I will have all year will be four days, that’s including the weekend.

3.Pushy Spitter. I enjoy spitting on the street and pushing random strangers, as long as they are younger than me.

4.OCD. I have grown accustomed to peeling every fruit and vegetable I eat. Koreans overload their fruits/vegetables with pesticides.

5.Bower. Occasionally I bow to people, but I’ve recently been having some neck issues, so that Korean custom is on hold.

6.Naked enthusiast. I have taken a liking to Korean public baths.

Korean public baths vary tremendously. I actually went to the largest public bath in Asia (although I’m sure Japan also has claim to the largest public bath). The largest bath in Asia compared to the other public baths I’ve gone to is more closely aligned to a spa, thus it is named The Spa.

The Spa had dozens of hot saunas that were for both sexes. Mind you, we all had to wear loose fitting cotton clothes that looked similar to Taekwondo drab, except that they were an off-set maroon color. The Spa was equipped with a TV room(you could watch your favorite TV shows while overlooking the skyline of the second largest city in Korea, Busan), a smoking room, high-end massages and a workout facility.
And, of course, The Spa had the baths. Bathes are a place where women and men separate into their various sexes, get naked, rub each other raw and glee with delight. This is really where the story begins…

Now, being detail oriented and not wanting your imagination to run to wild: "The Bath," or should I say, baths, are wonderful and composed of a series of rooms with hot and cold tubs. The tubs have multiple water temperatures and switching from the extremely hot ones to the icy cold help with health problems and prevent future ailments. The pangs of going from hot to cold so drastically reminded me of jumping into the snow after soaking in a warm hot tub: the feeling is exhilarating, frightening and nippy.

If you have already forgotten this detail, I will remind you again: Everyone is naked and everyone shares the same large baths. It is imperative that you shower before you get in. On my trip to The Spa, an old woman actually grabbed my arm and began rubbing it to ensure I showered properly; the more she rubbed, the more she realized that my arm was a little oily from my massage earlier that day. A sneer crossed her face as she called me Russian.

Oh, I didn’t mention my massage earlier that day? Well, let me indulge.
First, Koreans are insane about their skin. They spend tons of money on cosmetic treatments for their skin and judge people’s beauty by the glow of the skin and the white porcelain perfection of it. Women and men exfoliate once a week with very rough cloths; they’ve done this routine since childhood and thus the cloth no longer hurts their skin. When you go to a public bath and get a massage you are being scrubbed with this catlike-tongue cloth.

In a public bath there are three ways you can receive a massage/skin scrub:

1.Scrub yourself: Public baths have small "stations of beauty" for this type of activity. I like to call them this because the stations are not beautiful, nor are the women at these stations. The stations consist of a mirror, a small white stool (again everyone is naked and women switch without sanitizing the seat),and a woman scrubbing herself to oblivion.

2.Ask a friend: Many women do this and if I actually had friends here I might do the same. I could just imagine myself requesting, “Natalie, scrub hard in-between the cracks,” or, “Vita, really put some grease in my scrub this time. Last time you went half-ass on my feet." Sadly, I don’t really have friends here that would do such a thing.

3.Buy a friend: I find this scenario to be the most glamorous of them all. Imagine a woman in lingerie taking you(remember you are naked)to a room full of other naked women. The room is reminiscent of a high school gym’s physical therapy room with a ton of rickety old massage benches and the smell of musk. They sanitize your personal massage table by throwing hot water on it.

They then push you down onto the bench like a rag doll and the scrubbing begins. Korean women love being scrubbed by these lingerie women or as I like to call them prima scrubbers. But, I had a little different experience at ‘The Spa’…

After being thrown on this unsanitized plastic bench they began rubbing me with soapy water and by rubbing, I mean they actually threw the soapy water on me. And then they scrubbed. It hurt. In fact, I’ve never felt so much hurt before.

The prima scrubber who was scrubbing me that day was a little ornery. She kept screaming, “You are dirty” to me in Korean and laughing with her fellow prima scrubber at my lack of scrubbing knowledge.

In between the scrubbing of my skin, my faux friend thought it would be nice to help me lose some weight. Some Koreans lose weight by hitting the fat on their body. So while this woman was screaming, “You’re dirty,” she was also slapping my butt, because it’s huge here. All of the anger she had ever felt in her life went straight into my butt. After I thought she was done due to the exhaustion of her voice, she began on my thighs with the persistence of Gandhi and the strength of her great, great, great ,great grandfather Attila the Hun. She colored my thighs crimson. This wasn’t entirely bad because at least I was on my stomach and no one could see me cry, but this sensational slapping didn’t last long.

Eventually, the woman threw me over to my back and began punching my stomach harder than Ali. At this point I started screaming “Ow, Ow, Ow!!!” Instead of stopping she merely mocked me and screamed back “Ow, Ow, Ow” and punched harder.
What a true friend.

After this humiliating and disturbing exfoliation was over, my faux friend changed her personality completely. She threw a bucket of water on me and then began to rub oil all over my body, massaging all the pain away and whipping my tears with an avocado mask. She was as tender as a mother giving a bath to her newborn.

To say the least, I went back, and I do so twice a month. Yes, you may call me masochistic (minus the entire sexual aspect of that word), but the extremes of rag doll and baby are just as thrilling as hot and cold water, confusion and understanding, and life in America and life in Korea.

Fun Fact: Bed Time and Ghost

Dear Parents and others,

It has come to my attention that Korean children do not have a bed time. I see these small innocent creatures wandering the streets late at night and by late, I mean around 11:30 p.m.

I decided to do a little investigating.

I asked my class of second graders when they went to school and like most American children they said they go to school at 8:00 a.m. and like most American school children they get up at 7:00 a.m. to brush their teeth, comb their hair, and play on their new cell phones.

I found this to be rather curious, so I asked what time they and their parents went to bed. They informed me that they went to bed at around 12:00 a.m. and their parents usually went to bed at 3:00 a.m. They did not insinuate that there was in fact a bed time or that they wished to stay up later. Midnight is merely a time for them to go to sleep.

I was astounded!!! A child receiving only 7 hours of sleep with a full load of course work the next day, most my students (second graders) are in regular school for about eight hours; they have about two hours of after school activities ranging from Taekwondo to Piano, and then they have more school activities such as English, Spanish or Math class.

I guess Koreans just don't need that beauty sleep that we in the states do.

Now onto my next topic ghosts:

The other day I was really stressed at my class and I put my hair over my face like Cousin It. The children began to scream, "Ghost! Ghost!"

When I think of a ghosts, I think of a small fluffy character like Casper, but Koreans think of a cryptic Samara from The Ring.

Thus, if I ever want to scare my students into doing their homework and staying up until 3:00 a.m. because they are afraid the ghost will visit them at night, I simply put my hair over my face and tell them, "I'll get you if you aren't good to teacher."

Not in this butt - Newsflash

Much like American children, Korean children like to play tricks on one another. One of their many tricks is to stick their fingers in a gun shape and then stick these two fingers up their comrades' butt holes. The act is called dong chiming. In noun form it is simply dong chim. I'm not kidding!This act happens in schools across Korea (although I can't say North Korea has this practice), but anyone who has worked at a school in South Korea will have heard and/or experienced this disgusting jab.


And no, this hasn't happened do me. But yes, the little demons do it to their teachers too.

To say the least, I'm beginning to walk with my hands on my butt.

The Girl with No Legs

When I was about six years of age, I got in a terrible fight with my friends. I can't remember what the fight was about, but I do remember my retaliation was of leaving my group (because what punishment is bigger than the absence of me?), and choosing instead to spend my recess hours on the monkey bars.

Honestly, who needs friends when you have a series of metal bars to swing on?

Now when I first began the monkey bars, I wasn't that great. Being short for my age I had the disadvantage of not easily doing twosies (this is when you skip two monkey bars instead of one). I also had hyperhidrosis (this is when your hands sweat profusely) and often times I would slip off the bars just doing onesies.

This hindrance didn't bother me too much for I was one to overcome playground games and I had made a "friend." I called her the Girl with No Legs, or No Legs for short.

I called her this for the obvious reason: She had no legs. Her missing legs amazed me because growing up in Sandpoint, ID you rarely saw a person with a deformity. The town had been blessed with extremely attractive people. Well, at least the cuties that ran in my circle. Of course, you had the average inbred kid from the mountains, but I always chose not to look at these mutations and would leave the cafeteria table anytime one of these beasts would sit next to me. These pitiful and vain actions were getting me into some trouble in Sunday School and in my eyes No Legs was the perfect candidate to earn me some brownie points with God.

Of course, I was not the only kid in search of brownie points with the Big Man upstairs. No Legs had two groupies that followed her around everywhere. I had no need to befriend these groupies for two reasons:

One: I was disgusted at their kindness.

Two: I had much better looking friends outside the monkey bar scene.

But No Legs I did befriend in some way. I think she knew my name and she (like I) chose the monkey bars as our only 'true companion'. We had a special kinship for climbing and skipping and performing monkey like behaviors. The only difference between her and I that I could decipher (other than the legs) was she was no amateur on the monkey bars.

To this day I have not met a monkey barrer like No Legs. She could do everything! Twosies, threesies and someone claimed they saw her do a foursies, which was unheard of on playground land. Her arm muscles were rippling for a third grader and instead of spending her life chained to a wheelchair, No Legs walked on her hands. The action was much like a gorilla. No Legs would clinch her hands into a fist and swing from right to left. Her movement wasn't slow. She paced herself at a steady jog, which enabled her to get to her destinations(cafeteria, classroom, home and monkey bars) quite quickly. She found her way of walking to be both invigorating and it helped strengthen her upper body for monkey barring.

Most people haven't spent a lot of time around the monkey bars and don't really understand the practice that goes into the sport. The monkey bars are split into two disciplines: skipping and playing chicken. No legs was a professional at both. When the playground duty wasn't looking the monkey bar gang would play the more dangerous of the disciplines, chicken.

No Legs always went last to fight against the champion minion. And believe me, no minion ever won against No Legs. I don't know how No Legs did it, but she could wrap her stumps around your hips so tight it felt like she was giving them the sleeper hold.

And don't think the other monkey barrers were going half-assed--no Sandpoint, ID kid puts his second leg forward.

As my friends continued to overlook my absences, I continued to become a better and better monkey barrer. I was starting to do twosies and occasionally threesies. Even No Legs was somewhat encouraging. She would give me a callused high-five and a low grunt.

About a month after I had left my friends, my friend,Sarah, came up to me and started to encourage me to come back to the pretty gang. Having short term memory issues, I couldn't remember why I had become so angered by my friends in the first place. I began to miss playing soccer and spying on the older kids kissing in the dugouts. I came to realize it was time for me to leave the monkey bars.

Once I left, No Legs didn't really have anything to do with me. Her life was about being a "great," and friendships weren't that important to her. I didn't really care to stay in contact,either, and it didn't surprise me when No Legs left the school without me noticing.

During my elementary school career, I got in many fights with my friends and chose other playground equipment to take their place, but I'll never forget the monkey bars.

Occasionally when I see a playground set, I think of No Legs and wonder if she still isn't using a wheelchair to walk. I can almost imagine her walking the streets of New York with her callused fists clenched and her angry grunts reverberating down Fifth Ave.

However, I have a feeling she succumbed to the wheelchair.

I have a feeling that society told No Legs long ago that it was unacceptable to walk on her hands.

But I guess I can still hope and wish that No Legs hasn't left her childish ambition behind her. I hope, like me, she is chasing her dream to see the world through different eyes and not the ones society tells her to look through.

Hell, maybe I'll see her passing through the streets of Korea, stumps and all.