Working out

It's been a long time since my last post because of our trip to Thailand. While I'm sorting out my pictures and stories I thought I'd share my more recent experience of joining the gym that's just across the street. The gym is spacious, clean, very modern, and it's also quite beautiful. There are actually plants and trees on the gym floor seperating the free weights from the stretching mats. (What kind of work out could you possibly get if you could see the free weights from the strech/ab mat. I mean, really? But aside from the physical landscape of the gym - which, did I mention, is fantastic - it's the other perks that really won me over.


First you get two lockers. A permanent one for your shoes and deoderant, etc, and then one that changes daily for your clothes. This way you can keep your stinky gym shoes in the locker and you don't have to put your clean clothes in with them. The gym also provides towels and gym clothes that come in a variety of sizes and colors. I especially think this is fantastic because I didn't bring much workout wear with me to Seoul. Now I don't need to buy any because I just wear their clothes and use their towels and they wash them for me. No more gym bag, no more worries. There's also a large sauna/steam room in the women's shower room and the locker room is equipped with all kinds of toiletries including body lotions, hair dryers, q-tips, etc. Great! Personal training costs about $2.50 a session and the membership is about $80 per month with a discount if you pay for 3 months at a time. Today I took a yoga class and I didn't have to sign up for it. There were only 3 of us and I got a lot of personal attention.

All in all it's just another example of how the Korean's do it so right!


(I have to admit that there was one element to the gym that surprised me. It was the glass balcony attached to the gym (it's on the 4th floor) that is labeled: smoking. There were actually a group of guys who went from treadmill to weight machine to smoking section back to weight machine. Fascinating!)