Monserrate

I gasped for air and kept peddling, my head down so the spinning instructor wouldn’t see me laughing.

“Is it just me, or is he doing a sexy dance on top of the bike?” my friend Kari said on the bicycle next to me.

Day two in Korea, still jet-lagged, I had a 9:30am health check appointment at the hospital. A vision test, hearing test, lung X-ray and four vials of blood later, it was time to pee in a cup.

After being pricked and poked in front of what seemed like half of Seoul, a little urine sample sounded relatively painless.

I was wrong. My first public peeing experience—in a hospital mind you—ended up being in a ceramic hole in the ground.