Marathon

I signed up for a marathon last week. It's going to happen in Seoul on the 20th of March, which gives me 20 days from today to prepare.

So far, I have never run more than 15 miles. I was going to run 17 miles yesterday, but it was rainy. I still went running anyway, and I had mixed feelings about it. It was nice that no one else was outside, but that was for a good reason - it was really cold, wet, and muddy.

In the end, I decided that if I was going to try to run the full 17 miles that day, I would probably get sick, so I went home after about 8 miles.

I hope that on the day of the marathon I will:

-complete it in less than 5 hours (they allot you 1 hour/fifth of the race, and if you take more than that, they'll sweep you up in one of their sweep vehicles).

-not poop on myself.

Two modest goals, I think.

bling bling

bling bling (above).

Last week Saturday was one of the first warm days this year, and I took advantage. For hours, I wandered around the streets with my fellow English teachers and allies, Logan and Bettina.

We had high aspirations for the day - visiting a palace and getting a quote a full back tattoo (don't worry, it's not for me, but for discretions' sake, I won't say whether it's for Logan or Bettina).

In the end, there was no time for the palace, and we just barely found the tattoo parlor.

The reason it took us so long to find the tattoo parlor was mostly thanks to a truly diabolical map, which lists as major landmarks a coffee shop that has since gone out of business and a movie theatre that probably never existed. Three roads were on the map, none of which resembled their real life counterparts.

In the end, we called the tattoo parlor and had someone meet us and take us there.

But before we did that, we went to a Mexican restaurant. Bettina ordered guacamole.

"Sorry, we don't have that."

"But... you're a Mexican restaurant."

"Sorry."

Then she got her quesadilla (above), which made her even sadder. It was less than a full tortilla, cut into two slices. Also, did I say there was no guacamole?

She asked if she could have some toppings from my burrito, but I refused.

I (above), on the other hand, was very content. In this picture I am drinking a corona and a horchata at the same time. It was a really good horchata.

My burrito, unlike Bettina's quesadilla, was quite good. And for some reason, it had avocado (the quintessential ingredient of guacamole).

And finally, this is a missile (it's not relevant to the story).