Last weekend was our friend Matt's birthday. He decided that, in order to celebrate, we should all head to Gwangju and play game he used to play at summer camp when he was younger. There are 2 teams, each with a president. The aim is to assassinate the president using water balloons, while the defending team uses bags of flour to take out the would be killers. The weather forecast was a little poor, but as the aim of the game is to get wet, we figured it'd be fine. Following the game, the idea was to go for dinner, drinks, watch the Korea world cup game at the Gwangju World Cup Stadium, then more drinking.
Nat, Nick and Jimmy joined us for Friday night in Buyeo with plans to take it easy and head to Gwangju in the morning. Four bottles of wine later we stumbled to our beds and woke up somewhat later than we planned. We still managed to make it in time though and were able to help with the filling of hundreds of water balloons. Nick seemed to spend the whole time soaking people with a water pistol, which was very helpful. An hour or so later, the game got under way. We split into 2 teams (boys vs girls) and played rounds - 3 balloons per player. It was loads of fun chasing each other about, throwing flour or water at the opposition and generally being foolish. The park we played in was quite busy, and we drew quite a crowd of intrigued and puzzled Koreans. Some of them may have been caught in the crossfire, but that was entirely unintentional and their own fault for standing next to the president. We managed 3 rounds each before the balloon levels started to get low. We agreed on a final round each with less balloons per player. The boys were on defense. Nearing the end of the round, I spotted one of the girls getting worryingly close and sprinted over to try and flour her before we lost our president. She dodged out of the way, and as I attempted to change direction, there were two horrible cracking noises, followed by excruciating pain. I dropped to the floor and was quickly surrounded by our friends - apparently Becky heard the noise from over 50 metres way! Urgh. Fortunately, Lokhee was able to call an ambulance and the nearest hospital was across the street, so it didn't take long.
Despite fears of fractures or breaks, the x-rays showed nothing of the kind. In fact they also didn't show the previous fractures I thought I'd had. Must've been the other ankle. It's hard to keep track of these things. The x-ray they took of my chest also failed to show anything interesting. I'm not entirely sure what they were looking for. I was already pretty certain the cracking sound had nothing to do with my chest. I also received a nice injection in the bum, which purported to be some kind of pain relief, but did nothing but slur my speech and make me seem a little amusing to Becky. After being rather painfully forced into a plastic support and bandaged up, I asked if they'd give me some crutches. I was told I didn't need crutches as it wasn't broken, despite the fact that I was unable to put any weight on my left foot. I demonstrated this and was told that we would have to pay for them. We agreed to pay, and I was grudgingly brought a crutch. At it's longest, it was about 3 inches too short for me, which is not ideal. Unfortunately for me (and the multitude of Koreans who are my height and taller. Koreans are not all that small), the hospital didn't have any bigger crutches. It also turned out that our health insurance is not much good if you're injured, only if you have a cold. My bill came to close to 100,000 won for 5 x-rays, a bum injection and a single crutch. Where's the NHS when you need them?
This ruined our plans for the rest of the weekend, as I could do nothing more than lie down. Some of our friends came over to Lokhee and Anthony's for some takeaway food, then headed out, leaving us to watch the somewhat disappointing game fom the bed. All in all, it wasn't quite the weekend we had in mind.
On Monday we went to hospital in Buyeo to have my ankle checked again, and the doctor says I've torn a ligament. I have another set of supports and bandages, an array of pills to take, and a few days off work. I hate to complain about not having to work, but it is more than a little boring sitting around watching tv all the time. Being up on the fourth floor limits my movements a bit - I have to hop up and down stairs and it takes quite a lot of energy! Ah well. At least it's not broken! Oh, also, due to the water based game we were playing, we are lacking in photos of the day. I got Nat to take some pictures with her waterproof camera, so as soon as we get a copy of those I'll put them up!
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