25%

Already past the three month mark. I'm not Asian yet, but I did stop to buy an ice cream bar from a convenience store on a cold night, so I guess I'm picking up some of the local tendencies.

Not too many new developments to report, but I must point out that using public transportation and walking much more than I ever did previously have been great additions to my life. I love looking at maps and strategizing the fastest route or plotting a new course to try. Also, my patience is improving - getting stuck in crawling traffic on the bus presents a great opportunity for a nap, or plenty of time for listening to podcasts.

At the urging of Language Partner Hanna, my fourth month began with a ten-minute experience that was simultaneously exhilarating, hilarious and embarrassing. It's called the Disco, and it was the best/worst $4 I've spent in Korea so far.

Ring of death.

Tucked away next to restaurants and coffee shops on a busy shopping street, the Disco ride can be easy to miss. But once would-be riders enter the light-filled, mural-decorated space that houses the huge round platform that is the Disco, it's hard to walk away. When the two ride operators aren't heckling the passenger seated around the perimeter of the circular contraption, K-pop blasts from speakers. Screams fill the air as riders, (astonishingly) not wearing safety belts, cling to the sides of the ride while being spun around, then jerked and jolted up and down while also being tilted upward at (what feels like) an eighty-degree angle. Unlucky/weak riders who let go of the rails fall into the center of the ride and flail there, trying to get their balance and walk up the slope toward their seat. I held on for dear life, smiled like a fool while the operator talked about me in Korean, laughed heartily at the people who fell and couldn't look away from the trainwreck that was the chubby operator doing choreographed bits of K-pop dances in the middle of the ride. All this willful embarrassment in a culture known for saving face. Confusing.

Yikes.