here we go

On my way home from the gym, where I just got my very own membership, I decided it really was time to exit "vacation mode" and enter into my new reality here in Seoul. I keep saying this, but I am surprised how easily I have accommodated to Korean life - the food, the job, the friends. Walking home I realized that I really haven't had that culture shock moment I'd expected.

My guts, however, have been singing a completely different tune. I won't sing it for you now, but I did sing it...and dance it...to a complete stranger.

I took my guts to an herbal pharmacy full of mystical remedies and was welcomed by an older woman. I pointed to my angry stomach and began grunting, pouting my lips, puffing out my cheeks and waddling around like a bloated penguin- generally trying to get the point across that I was in agony. She watched patiently and quietly until I was finished with my little constipation dance, then asked if I had been eating a lot of bread of drinking too much beer.

"Sometimes," she said, "that can cause some intestinal problems and those foods should be avoided."

Before the red in my cheeks could reach their full brilliance, she cracked open a bottle and a pouch of grain and forced it down my throat. She didn't charge me. (Perhaps it was the humiliating bowel dance I did.) She just told me to hurry home and go to bed within the next 4 hours.

Not entirely sure what is about to happen to my body. Not entirely sure what it was I ingested. All I know is the next time I walk into a pharmacy with an ailment, Ill ask if they've ever lived in New York for 10 years and speak perfect English. Spare me the shame.

UPDATE: it worked.