Nowhere to Run

As part of my plan to get back into shape after six months of bombardment by Korea's food culture, we went over the road to the local gym again in order to sign up. Normally when you enter a place here and see dozens of shoes stacked up outside you expect to discover about the same number of people inside. In fact, the opposite was true here because customers leave their trainers in the hallway when they leave.

A sign on the wall ominously warns anyone who cares to read it not to steal shoes although it was somewhat vague on the consequences. It's an odd site to me given that in the UK anything that isn't nailed down is entirely likely to disappear in a very short space of time. Korea might be rising up the world economic tables while conversely suffering from some shocking poverty, but it has a long way to go before it catches up Britain in the theft league, so the warning seemed somewhat unnecessary.

As the shoes suggested, the gym was empty, and possibly with good reason - the owner told us it was closing down at the end of the month. So there went my plan of joining a place that I didn't have to walk too far to... He helpfully suggested a rival establishment at the other end of the road, but when we reached the location we thought he'd indicated, all we found was a 'Relax Sports Thai Massage' establishment, and I'm not sure that's the kind of exercise we had in mind.

Korean Mother has loaned us her 'fitness hoop' - a large hula hoop style device with rather hard raised domes on the inside, the purpose of which seems designed to cause bruises on the abdomen. Ideally designed for use in open spaces or at least a larger apartment than our 'one-room', we are nevertheless risking life, limb and quite possibly our television by using this to exercise until our search for a gym is successful.