Lust in my officetel gym

A average morning in my gym ended with a sexual fiasco.

    Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever pictured myself in the situation I was in this morning at 9 am. I understand that Korea's culture can be harsh for those in sexual relationships. Most Koreans live with their parents until they are married, even if they are grown adults at ages 30 and higher. Unfortunately, this has resulted in the creation of love motels, which are pretty much serviced by young Korean couples. Some of my first weeks in August 2010, were spent in a love motel, and trust me I was the only guest there during the day. So here's the story:

Love motels are only the beginning. Courtesy of Luke Martin.

    At 8:40 am I entered the gym of my officetel apartment building. No one was in the gym, and so after turning on all of the lights and I hopped on the treadmill. About ten minutes later, the mirror in front of me revealed a young girl, probably in her late twenties entering the gym. She was dressed up with high heels and a cute Korean style dress. Wait a minute? Why would this girl be entering the gym all dressed up for work? Well, maybe she left something in the stretching room yesterday, or maybe she works in the Korea Cyber University (which is in my building) and just wants to take a nap.
    She headed straight for the guys stretching room, which was directly behind a wall that blocked my view. I thought it was peculiar that she never turned on any lights in the stretching room. And why would she go in the guys room, instead of the girls? Well maybe she likes to take a nap on the mats just like the office tel maid does sometimes, I thought to myself. There have been a few instances where I thought I was alone in the gym, but then suddenly the maid emerged from the guys stretching room after taking a long nap. One time I was even singing loudly to a K-pop group 2NE1, when the maid revealed herself and stared me down in the treadmill mirror.
    After playing out every possible scenario in my head, even the one where the young girl is accepting drugs from the officetel maid, the real office tel maid entered the gym at 8:50 am. She headed straight for the guys stretching room where she usually takes a nap, and immediately she started cursing vibrant Korean words into the room. She was clearly pissed off about something and immediately ran out of the gym and down the hallway where she started yelling at some office workers in a rent-able office room on the floor.
    Meanwhile, I continued working out casually with my eyes plastered to the mirror in front of me. Two minutes later, I saw the dressed up Korean girl exit the guys stretching room and she was not alone. A tall sexy Korean man followed right behind her with an ashamed and bright red face.
    There are no guessing games as to what was going on in the male stretching room that morning! Clearly they had met up to do the deed, and the fact that I was in the other room walking on the treadmill was of little importance to them. I guess the love motel was getting a little expensive, so by using my officetel's stretching room they saved a few hundred won a month.


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  Gone Seoul Searching by Marie Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at goneseoulsearching@gmail.com.