Boo Butterfly!!!

No, I don't mean the delicate winged creatures that flap about spastically in the sky, I mean the butterfly stroke. I've been meaning to post for ages on swimming culture here in Busan and, well, here it is.

I love swimming. Lap swimming is great exercise and gives me a chance to think about nothing in particular. But sometimes I love swimming a little less in the pools near my house. I used to go to a really nice pool that was new and had big windows to let in natural light. The free swim hours for that pool are in the afternoons and haven't matched my schedule in a few years. Enter Century 21. That's the name of the building where my new pool is. It's quite a bit smaller and grungier than the first pool, but the free swim hours are much better - open till 11pm weeknights and 10pm on weekends. If I don't have to wake up too early, the best time to go is around 9:30 - 10:00 pm when the lessons are all done and the pool pretty much empties out.

Until tonight. I got to the pool at 10:00pm, only to find at least three people per lane. In one lane, a guy insisted on practicing his diving (not a great idea in a pool with no deep end), in another lane were some slower folks who also liked to stand around at the end of the lane gabbing at high volume, and in another, the bane of my existence - a heavyset fellow chugging away doing the butterfly stroke.

I have long suspected and was eventually told my another swimmer that here the butterfly stroke is a prestige stroke; it's trendy if you will. Now in principle I don't give a crap how people want to propel themselves through water. In practice however, the butterfly creates waves, lots of 'em, and even more so if the person doing the fly is large and slow. Garrrrrrr. I guess if I ever find myself afloat in the ocean during a typhoon I'll be able to swim through it no problem.

For the most part, tonight I was just a little disappointed at how many people there were so late in the day. Not sure if it was because it's still hot here and people want to cool off, or if the Olympics are to be blamed for inspiring people into the water.

Other slight differences in pool culture: none of the pools in my 'hood have deep ends, kids may run on the deck, and lifeguarding is optional. In my pool there is a little room at one end where who I presume are lifeguards hang out, but who I've only ever seen watching TV or sleeping.

Other fun incidents at my new pool/gym: here people shower and then put on their swimsuit, which is actually hard to do. Dry swimsuits and wet bodies don't mix. As I struggled to get into mine one time, I was startled by a lady next to me deciding to help me into mine.

I finally got a full membership to the gym with the 'new' pool (I'd been subsisting on discount coupons before) just yesterday. Tonight when I went the Staff Lady who signed me up started talking to me, in Korean, a lot. I sort of got the gist that she was asking me a favour, something about a foreigner (that's all white people in Korea). So I followed her over to the other desk where she dialed a number and handed me the phone. Suddenly I figured out what I was supposed to do. This other Foreigner with a membership hadn't been to the gym since mid-August and the Staff Lady was concerned. So I told this to the Foreigner on the phone, who was understandably a little perplexed at the nature of the call, but told me I should tell the Staff Lady that she'd simply been busy and not to worry. The Staff Lady seemed satisfied with this explanation.

These are good examples of the wackiness that really keep me enjoying this fair land~!