At the beginning of September, we bought a membership to a gym that was in the process of remodeling but claimed it would open the first week in October. Obviously I use the word "claim," because after pushing back the opening date at least five times, the gym finally opened just before Thanksgiving.
The wait turned out to be worth it. It's actually a really nice gym, it was very cheap to become a member, and working out is something that I love doing for a number of reasons.
Maybe my favorite thing about the gym, however, is the people that work there. None of them speak a lick of English, so it's up to my Mandorin skills to carry on conversations with them, but nonetheless, it's been a lot of fun to get to know them a little bit. As is typical with this country, they always have about double the people working there as are necessary, and I'm not actually sure what one of my better friends there actually does when he works. I'm 90% sure his only job is to walk around, being friendly, and helping people to feel welcome.
One day he invited me to play basketball with the other trainers, so I showed up one Saturday afternoon to play basketball with 10 of the biggest, most athletic guys you'll ever find here! It was a great opportunity to spend time with them and get to know more of them a little bit, though I occasionally made a fool of myself by continuing to play on longer after someone had apparently called a timeout or something. I would get really excited that I had just stolen the ball and would be ready to go on the attack when I would realize that they had all stopped and were looking at me with their hands on their hips, probably thinking, "What in the world is this foreigner doing!?" Still, it's great to be able to have some kind of ministry outside of my "job" and to have some friends outside of my job - even if I can't understand them very well. It's really made me want to learn the language better as we always seem to discuss the same five things every time we see each other and then stare at each other, wishing we were better able to communicate with one another.
The best part of my day of basketball with them was getting to talk to the HUGE, head trainer from the gym. I taught him how to throw a football for awhile and we talked a bit. Previous to this, as men have a tendency to do, we would always just size each other up in the gym and never say a word to each other! He now comes over every time I'm there to see how I'm doing.
One day I made the mistake of telling him I wanted to work on strengthening a particular part of my body. I was already through 3/4 of my workout, but that didn't matter. He proceeded to put me through an intense, hour-long workout. And let's just say they do weightlifting a little different here...you don't lift a certain number of reps and sets, you just keep adding weight and doing a set number of reps over and over until you can't do anymore. And when the trainer tells you to do 8 reps, you WILL do 8 reps, even if you only have the strength to do 2 on your own and he helps with the rest! I was extremely sore for a LONG time and it was hard to even sit up for about a week! Needless to say, I try to look busy whenever he comes around from now on so he doesn't try to put me through another unorthodox workout!
I realize this is an awkward picture. Let me explain...The other day after working out, I asked my friend, the head trainer at the gym I've been talking about, if I could get a picture with him. As we prepared for the picture, he had his arms crossed and was looking as tough as possible, so I figured, "Okay...tough picture it is." Apparently he changed his mind at the last second and neglected to tell me he was going to do so. So as a result, he's smiling, and I look extremely angry. And just for the record, I have lost some weight this year, but I promise it's not as much as it looks like. This guy's just huge! And don't worry Jordan, my muscles haven't gotten any smaller and I could still take you! -CK
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