(Day 238) Seoul Nambu Correctional Facility-day 143 D-13

sit-ups	push-ups	chair-lifts
100	90	90
Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner = March 1

Mr Kim gave me some more coffee, so now I have that for a couple of days... the weekend, at least. It’s hard to find much to write about. Nothing really happens. I have no drama between inmates because we never really interact and when we do, I only talk to one person because he's the only one who understands English. We talk about food and travel. Mr Kim has been all over the world.

I do the same things everyday and I've already written about that multiple times. Poor writing in Korea English language papers, poor acting in Korean soap operas and how many sit-ups I can do-- all pretty boring and mundane.

I started writing another book, but I haven't quite finished the other two books, yet. I don't really want to write much of this book by hand with pen and paper. I'll be able to use a computer in a little more than a week, and even if I spent 8 hours a day typing what I already have, it will take almost 2 months or more to transfer all my notes to the computer. And then all the time to re-write and edit before I'm ready to present it to other people, the long journey towards trying to get it published, either by a publisher or self-publishing and all the promotions and work involved after that... I may be writing this in 2013 but it could be 2014 before anybody reads it.

We got new inmate workers today, so yeah-- there's that... Now I have to train a new pair how to deal with the foreigner in cell 7 because we're also difficult to please with our sense of Imperialistic superiority.
The hardest part is the food. They have this misconception that only Koreans eat spicy food and it is way too spicy for a mere foreigner, so they have to give me these tiny portions of kimchi and yellow curry that could hardly feed a bird. I'm not even going to bother avoiding the rice, I need to gain weight anyway and 12 days won’t really do much. But give me bigger portions damn it!

Yellow curry is the weakest, compared to every other kind of curry, and kimchi is more sour than spicy. From my experience, it's the Koreans have a hard time with really spicy food. All Korean food is spicy, that's true, but it's all the same pepper that makes it spicy and the pepper itself is actually quite mild. I find Korean food bland because there's no variation between spices-- the curry is always yellow, peppers are always the same variety. I'll bet a Korean could barely handle a banana pepper or green or red curry. To make food spicier, they just add more peppers which overpowers the flavors of all the other ingredients.
I will not miss being asked if the food is too spicy or the surprise after at being able to weld a pair of chopsticks.

I just did it again... repeating the same subject-- this time, food. Exercise, bad TV, poor writing and food... Yawn. 12 more days...