Red Gym of Doom

Neighbor Nick convinced me to join his gym so that we can motivate each other to get our lardy western posteriors out of our warm, comfy beds at a ridiculous hour of the morning, deliberately torture ourselves through excessive, unnecessary movement and sweat more than a teenage boy hiding in a swimsuit model's cupboard.

This isn't where I parked my car!

So we joined Red Gym. They have a yoga class every night that I haven't had a chance to go to yet, and a lot of machines, many of which are completely alien to me. I was greeted by a small, extremely buff Korean guy in a very small, very tight, lumo-green lycra t-shirt.

We signed up, and I paid a three month membership online. With yoga classes, it came to W160 000, so I guess I'd better start going. I don't think the class is in English, so that's going to be a fun story.

He handed me a tiny towel, some unflattering one-size-fits-all shorts and a shirt.  Red for the girls, blue for the boys. He directed me to the changing room. I walked in, and the first thing I noticed is that everyone leaves their takkies at the gym. I need to buy myself a fresh new pair and leave them there. I put my stuff in the locker, and I vaguely remembered reading somewhere about showering before and after your workouts. So I stripped and headed to the shower area. Which was... My first communal showering experience outside of a jjimjilbang.

An ancient ajumma was sitting on the floor of the shower, her legs spread wider than a simile I don't want to spend too much time on, scrubbing her hoohah with gusto.

I politely greeted her and moved to a showerhead some way away. There were also lots of baskets in the bathroom, filled with toiletries. So that's something else I should get.

So wait, you're telling me I can go straight from work to the gym without having to carry anything more than a bottle of water and my asthma pump?

The gym itself was ok. Something cool is that all the treadmills have TVs attached. This morning I watched competitive League of Legends, a lingerie fashion show, the Bold and the Beautiful and some kind of variety show about farming. Next time I hope I remember earphones.

Lycra McMuscles was helpful, coming over and telling me to stick my chest out more when doing the lat pulldowns. Of course, in broken English that mostly consisted of him pointing at my boobs and going 'No! Out! This! Yes!' which made me somewhat uncomfortable. I am still a bit nervous about trying some of the machines, especially the ones where it's unclear exactly which way is up. For now I'm sticking to the ones I know, and watching the ajeossis and ajummas out of the corner of my eye to see how to do things properly.

So far so good.