A friend of mine recently traveled on vacation to South Korea and made a funny video about all of his interesting experiences.

That reminded me I haven't written a blog entry in a long time!

So here are two quick stories about two of my favorite hobbies:  table tennis and saunas.

I recently moved to a new area of Seoul where there are many small, family-owned restaurants.  One owner in particular who I met was an avid ping pong fan, so he invited to take me to his club.

He never mentioned our mode of transportation.

No we didn't walk, take the subway, or even take his care.  We biked it, as in old-school bicycle biking.

I borrowed one of his friend's bikes, and we took off for this table tennis club.  This was my first time riding a bike in Seoul, and geez, probably the first time in eight years that I can remember I rode a bike at all!  It was probably a 10-15 minute trip, but boy, was it a trip!  Most of the time we were riding against the traffic on the wrong side of the road, then going on and off the sidewalks as needed.  I won't tell you how many times I had to give up the right of way to a car, or how many times I had to steal it, but it kept me on my toes to say the least.

As for saunas, I've been to various saunas throughout Korea, and they are all very similar.  But the one I went to today was worth a special mention.  In the sauna's cold pool was a function where you'd press a button and two big spouts would shoot out water hard and fast like a fire hose.  If you got too close, it hurt like a fire hose as well. 

But there has to be some sort of therapeutic advantage of this, right?