Days 4 and 5: A sad but necessary decision

After struggling through 4 1/2 days of what I would consider to be horrible I am throwing in the towel. And just to make sure no one will try and convince me to change my mind, I ate a hot dog at Costco today. Hopefully I can get my point across for why I have come to this conclusion.

Since moving to Korea, I have been working longer and harder than I have ever worked in my entire life. I thought I was coming to teach the English language to junior high and high school students at a private Christian school, but sadly I was mistaken. The school is still a Christian school but I was told that I would be teaching Social Studies (my major is advertising) and that one of the classes would be an AP one. I am by no means a history major or even a history buff so this has been difficult trying to prepare lessons. For the first semester I was teaching a world history class and an AP world history class for 83 minute periods, 5 times a week. I had to pull countless all-nighters preparing for class and it put a major strain on my priorities. On top of all of this I was also the Athletic Director of our school.

The winter semester was 7 weeks long and I taught a brand new class (comparative politics) for 143 minute periods, 5 days a week! Since I had two comparative politics courses to teach I had to stay focused on school and it once again became the top priority in my life. The spring semester started 2 weeks ago and I am now teaching a U.S. History course and an AP World History course. I am realizing now there are some major changes that I need in my life to get my priorities in line. I resigned as the athletic director and have decided to put this year's blogrimage on hold. I believe it is the right decision and even though I only lasted 4 1/2 days I learned alot about where I place food on that priority list. I am hoping that I begin to focus on the important aspects of my life before things spiral out of control.

Without getting too personal I want to ask for some prayer as I finish off my 2 years here in Korea. Pray that I might understand the love of God. Pray that my marriage would prosper. Pray that I would have a burning desire for God that has been set aside for school work. Thanks for all the support and the people that believed I could make it. Maybe I will be called back to this kimchi fast again, but I am not really sure what it would have done for me in the end. I still hate that stuff.

For some reason I kept thinking about all the people I was letting down. But then with the help of my wife I found this verse. I am sure some of you have heard it before. It helps us remember that we must not worry about what others think and strive to please God in all that we do.

"For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ."
-Galatians 1:10 (NASB)

Day 3: Kimchi 101

I am starting to realize that I need to learn more about what I am eating and why it is good for me. Many times I will go the cafeteria and point to a dish and ask my students if it is kimchi. My general rule of thumb has been if it is covered in red spices and looks and smells fermented then it is kimchi. But, sometimes I have been wrong and this is why I always double check with a Korean.

Kimchi is a traditional Korean vegetable side dish. It is not even the main course, but just one of many side dishes. Kimchi is made by fermenting seasoned cabbage and other vegetables (radish, green onions, or cucumber). While there are nearly 200 types of kimchi, the basic ingredients are cabbage, salt, and hot pepper sauce. I have seen it used in soups, pizza, burgers, and even donuts (yes I will look for this).

According to one source I found, Kimchi has recently gained popularity in the world. I am sure this has something to do with the health aspect. According to Health Magazine, Kimchi is one of the 5 healthiest foods in the entire world. It also claims that the average Korean eats 40 pounds of it a year! I might agree with them on how much the average Korean eats, but this article also suggests to put kimchi on top of a baked potato. I am telling you from my own personal experience, do not do this! Your baked potato will no longer taste good.

This was the meal I wanted

This was the meal I got

Since I have only completed 10% of my blogrimage I will save the health benefits, history of kimchi, and the arguments against it for another time. I did eat 3 meals today and had kimchi at all of them. The worst one was this morning because it was the same cabbage I had for dinner last night. I spread my kimchi out and made some rice and kimchi sandwiches to help the food go down easier. I kept thinking about the breakfast burrito one of the foreign teachers was eating this morning and gagged on one particularly slimy bite of cabbage during breakfast.

While today was rough I can still say that I made it. I am still going strong and know that I will be able to finish this. I did have one thought that kept coming up during the day, "why didn't I choose 30 days of fruit." Maybe other people cannot understand the reason behind this blogrimage, but I know there is some reason behind this absolutely insane journey. I am glad to be apart of this even though those strawberries looked really good today.

Day 2: I almost fasted kimchi today

I am not sure, but I think I subconsciously fasted kimchi for two meals today. If you did not realize this yet I am only eating 3 meals a day and those meals must consist of only rice and kimchi. I cannot snack and that has been one of the hardest hurdles thus far (and I am only two days into this).

Back to the fast...

I did not eat breakfast until 10am due to having a 1st period class. I did not hunt down any kimchi I simply ate a bowl of rice. At lunchtime I needed to finish some classwork and lesson planning so I missed that meal. I usually fast my lunch on Wed. and spend time with God, but I think I just made sure I was busy today so I would not think about kimchi. So, I still put work and food above my relationship with God. Crap.

I have told all of my classes about my journey and they have now become my accountability partners. At dinner a few of them came up to me and checked my tray to make sure I was doing everything correctly. One of them said, "Good work Mr. Hankins, just kimchi."


The only time I ate kimchi was by far the worst time of my day, especially because I was really hoping for some decent stuff to eat and it ended up being my least favorite kimchi: cabbage. I took a huge bite out of the cabbage and could barely swallow it because of how cold and sour it was. I really hate that stuff. I decided to make kimchi sandwiches using the rice as the filling and that helped ease the pain. As you can see below Ashley seems to love this stuff! I wonder how much she would love it if it was all she ate for every meal. I am jealous of all the people around me right now with better food to eat.


I am not sure if I will have a chance to teach everyone about kimchi tomorrow, but I will make sure to have a kimchi lesson before week 1 is over.

Day 1 (Part 2): I am Pathetic

I want chocolate

I want pie

I want steak

I want meat of any kind

I want a pastrami sandwich

I want the Italian food my wife is making right now

I do not want kimchi

I apparently have some major issues with self-control and food. I love food and eat a lot of it. Now, that I am limited to three meals a day of rice and kimchi I no longer have a strong desire for it. I actually did not want to go to lunch or dinner today because I knew what I was going to have to eat. I am proud that I made it through the first day, but I can tell this might be one of the hardest things I will ever do. It sounds sad and pathetic, but I bow down to the god of food and eat whatever makes me feel happy. Riding a bike in freezing rain was easier than this because at least I got to eat whatever I wanted.

This will be an uphill battle, but I made it my first day.

Day 1: I hate kimchi

I live in Korea right now and enjoy all of the food except kimchi. It looks funky and smells the same way. Putting it in someones locker in America would be a new ultimate prank. Since the entire country eats this stuff at every meal, I figure I need to warm up to it. What better way to open my mind, mouth, and stomach then a blogrimage! For the next 30 days I have decided to live on a kimchi and rice diet for every meal. I will make sure to take photos and post interesting facts about kimchi and its health benefits. There are hundreds of varieties of kimchi available so I will make sure to mix it up. The main kimchi dish that I am confronted with every day at school is cabbage. I enjoyed my first bowl this morning, but it seems like the other foreign teachers did not feel the same way. The office smells pretty fermented (yes this is a smell). The smell almost made me not eat it, but I was able to put away 10 pieces of cabbage before returning the bowl to the cafeteria. I will have to slowly work up to eating an entire bowl of this stuff before the blogrimage is over.



After consulting many friends before taking on this project I have decided that kimchi and rice alone would not be wise. So the rough schedule will look something like this:
Week 1- kimchi and rice
Week-2 kimchi, rice, and a hard boiled egg
Week 3- kimchi, rice, and a hard boiled egg
Week 4- kimchi and rice

It starts with kimchi and it will end with kimchi!

Day 2 Preview: What is kimchi?

Day 28, 29, 30: It is over!

After not riding my bike on Sunday or Monday (Ashley drove me everywhere) I felt that it was necessary to ride my bike to work on my final day of the blogrimage. It has been an incredible journey and after not riding my bike for a few days in a row I actually feel sore. I started this journey with cold weather and it looks like I ended it with cold weather. I am looking forward to driving my car again, but I am still unsure of what the future holds for me this summer. I know I will ride to work again, but how often? People at work will probably be happy with me if I never ride it again (mainly due to the sweat). I do feel more fit and healthy since I started and I have been able to eat a ton of food and not gain weight. One thing my wife is concerned about it what I will do for exercise now. In my opinion it was a cool lifestyle that I chose for the last thirty days because I was able to get to work and back as well as exercise for close to two hours everyday!

I started this 30 day blogrimage mainly as a challenge for myself. I did finish it today (minus one day on Saturday) and I will see how I feel returning to normal life. What started as something I just wanted to complete ended up being more thought provoking. I had no idea I would be thinking about gas money, the environmental impact of not driving, or what life was like outside of my Lexus cage. It is strange what happens when you focus so much energy and attention to one thing. I want to spend more time reflecting on the entire event and I will save that for another post.

I will make sure to post before and after calve muscle pictures for everyone. Thanks for joining me on this journey. Ride Strong!

Day 26 and 27: It's all downhill from here

Friday was a good day for riding and I made it home in 40 minutes. That has not happened since the first week of starting this journey mainly because the wind has always been right in my face. This time it was with me and there was a huge difference. Now, the only disadvantage about being as fast as lightning is that I had a greater chance of falling or even getting hit by a car. I almost got hit by a girl on a cellphone and another incident almost occurred with a woman not seeing me while trying to make an early right on red. I yelled at both of them and they looked scared. In fact, the first girl was in a blue Toyota and I ended up staying with her car for three miles! This is how fast I was going and how slow traffic was on Friday.

I guess I was trying to rush home because Ashley was sick and went home from work early that day. It gave me a bad attitude the whole time and I was not going to put up with any cars. Since I started this journey I sometimes feel like there are just machines zooming by me with robots driving them. I forget that there are human beings in there (all I see if cell phones, make up, and stress). Bicycles and walkers have the right of way, but we have lost this privilege in the car dominated society we live in. I have been reading this book called "No Impact Man" (which I discussed earlier) that has made some good points about cars and Americans.

1. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 17 percent of the average American's income goes toward the costs of owning and running a car.

2. Every ten minutes we spend commuting, means 10 percent less connection with our friends and communities (unless you carpool)

3. Even if you don't own a car, research shows that the more vehicular traffic there is on the street where we live, the fewer friends we have, because the traffic causes us to spend less time hanging out in our neighborhood.

It talks more about the effect that cars have on pollution and greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, but I am not here to talk about those things. All I can say is the only thing cars really have on bicycles and walking is when they are needed for long trips. When needing to get to work, the store, the movies or anywhere around town a bicycle is perfect. You don't need to worry about going to the gym, just kill two birds with one stone (go where you need to go and lose weight at the same time). From spending time in Asia, everyone uses there feet or bikes to get from A to B and they are healthier and more energetic.

Saturday has been an interesting day and there is something that I must admit to everyone. I still feel shame from what I did but it was for a good reason. Next weekend I will be traveling to Norman, OK to see the Dirty Projectors play at the Norman Music Festival. Not only will I get to see an awesome show I will get to spend some great time with Blayze himself. In order to get to Norman I will need my car. I definitely considered riding my bike there, but since it is past the 30 days and since it is over 90 miles away I decided to drive. I went out to look at m car the other day and see if it was ready to make the journey since it has not been driven in a couple weeks. It looked great except for my back tire...it was completely flat. I called AAA today to com and air it up so Ashley could take me to Goodyear and get it fixed. Well, since Ashley was super sick today she told me no! I could not believe it at first because earlier this morning she had found the courage to drive us to the Tulsa Farmer's Market on Cherry Street! But, now the moment that I needed her she was in bed! I am sure all of you think I am jerk for saying these things, but I did not want to give up after so many days. I had gone three weeks without driving a car and now I was at the last weekend! I tossed it around and decided what needed to be done. I got in my car and went to Goodyear to get the tire fixed.

I know that people reading this blog might be shocked, but I want to respect my wife while she is trying to recover from being sick. I decided that I needed to make up for all this driving by going a couple of miles on my wife's bike for groceries, but it did not stop raining all day. So, I did not get out on the bike once. Today was a great day to have a car. The picture of the bicycle was actually my set up for grocery shopping. The gas I used getting around town and then putting two new tires on the car cost a whole lot of dough. I am not saying that I am going to divorce my car forever but you can not doubt the high costs of maintaining a car.

I am going to continue to go without a car for the next few days because it is only day 28 tomorrow. Although I drove today, I do not feel wrong for doing it. My life would be much worse if I had tried to force my sick wife out of bed and into my car. I know I made the best decision for my well being and hers.