Yellow Sand

Here is what we've been dealing with around here lately - Yellow Sand (aka, Asian Dust), and exactly why I'm wearing glasses and probably not running (again!) today...

I know it sounds kind of bad, but really, I can't even tell when it's out there, other than it looks pretty hazy. My intern here, Raldo, advises me when I can go for a run, because, as he states, "We Koreans, we can see it and we especially feel it on our faces and in our breath."

So interesting living on the other side of the world.

Um, people are staring...

So, I have to laugh out loud about this, because it's just such an experience... Anyone who knows me knows I run - I'm ridiculously vocal about it - and I've written here before about my new running path along the Sincheon. But this post isn't really about running, but what happens to me every night when I run.

Staring is a common practice in Korea - it's not socially awkward or frowned upon, and native born Koreans gaze with reckless abandon at foreigners. I'm not going to lie, but that's one reason I dyed my hair red here - to stand out a bit more...a blonde friend of mine gets free stuff all the time because people are so in awe of the  color of her locks.

And by "gaze" I mean looking up and down, pointing, following with the head as one passes by on the street. I mean, it's really funny, as well as being a bit uncomfortable. But I never get stared down in public like I do when I run. I mean, it's like they've never seen curves before!

Tonight was particularly laughable, which is why I'm writing. I had one guy who looked like he was actually walking across the path toward me. I got several thumbs-ups tonight; one man, walking with friends, started pointing vigorously, then gave me the thumbs up sign - not sure if that's because I was running well or because I was wearing running knickers. Lot's of men wave. And twice now I've had a little old wrinkly man clap for me when I run into the tunnel that leads back to my apartment complex.

It's all enough to give me a complex!!! But I'm laughing about it, and waving back. It's just all kind of hilarious.