Hey everyone, here's a new post that's certified grade-A pleasure reading at its finest.
This past weekend was pretty fantastic to say the least. Friday after school I continued my badminton lessons, which have turned into 45 minutes of working on my footwork on the court, or as I like to refer to it, ballet class. Coming from a tennis background it's hard to imagine that movement on the court would be much different in badminton, but I was surprised by how much it is. I've been trying to master a 7-step sequence, which I can do when I'm not trying to hit the birdie, but still have a lot of trouble doing when actually going through the motions with the birdie in the air. Most of the time I end up falling over myself or have my Korean teacher yelling at me that I'm doing the steps in the wrong order, but I'm definitely enjoying it. It ends up being a pretty decent workout. I even got to bed pretty early by Friday night standards in preparation for my Saturday field trip with my special English class.
Saturday's field trip was pretty awesome to say the least. We started off at the LG Science Hall in Yeouido, an island on the Han River in Seoul. The exhibits were pretty interesting. First, we got a background on LG, including some amazing black and white commercials from the 1960s, before TV was prominent in South Korea. Next, we went to the renewable energies room, complete with solar energy, wind energy, fuel cells, and a model future city. The life science exhibit was next and the kids got a kick out of the child predictor machine. Basically the machine took two images of the students and fused them together to predict what their child would look like. There were dancing robo-dogs as well. We also got to go in a 3-d simulator, have a robot painter paint our pictures and we got some goodies when we left. After the LG Science Hall, we made our way to Bucheon and Aiin's World. Aiin's World is like Mini Israel for those who have been there. It is basically an open space filled with smaller replicas of world famous buildings, castles, etc... We also took in a magic show performed by clowns and another 3-d movie. All in all it was a pretty successful afternoon. Saturday night was spent in Seoul with all the usual fanfare.
On Sunday, a few of us went to Gwanghamum Plaza in downtown Seoul to watch Snow Jam, an aerial ski and snowboard competition. It was really interesting to see how they fit the ramp for the jump onto the plaza. Unfortunately the event planners probably didn't count on warmer weather; it was around 8 degrees Celsius, a little warm for skiing or snowboarding. In addition to the competition they also had a makeshift ice rink set up and a bunny hill run, which looked painful since most of the fake snow had melted away. Earlier in the week, Andrew Gruen, the son of our good family friends, who is also here in Korea, invited me over for a little Hanukkah celebration on Sunday afternoon. So, after Snow Jam, we made our way to Andrew's for some latkes and noodle kugel, which both turned out well. It was a nice gathering and I know we all really appreciated it. We even lit the menorah and sang Maoz Tzur. It was a nice end to the weekend.
Yesterday night I finally tried the Indian restaurant a few blocks away from me with my friend Rebecca and it did not disappoint. Great samosa, curry, tandoori chicken, and naan. No Kahili unfortunately, but maybe I'll find him next time. I am a little jealous that Robyn is done with her first semester of university and got to go to the Vikings game with Dad on Sunday. I'm definitely counting down the days until next Thursday, I'm ready to be on vacation and so far, I've been busy putting the finishing touches on my winter camp schedule and workbooks. I've added some pictures of my school and the field trip. I can't believe I haven't mentioned this yet in any posts, but Koreans like to compare foreigners to other celebrities. Throughout the years, there is one celebrity that I'm constantly being compared to, whether its waiters at restaurants or people i meet for the first time they always seem to arrive at the same person. That person is Adam Sandler. Personally I don't see it and neither does anyone that knows me (family, friends, etc...) but it's been fairly consistent and especially here in Korea. A few weekends ago on the way home from Seoul a couple was taking pictures of me on their cell-phone for obvious reasons (Do I really look like him?) Then this past weekend at Andrew's, one of his Korean friends told me I reminded him of Adam Sandler as well. It's happening so much that I've come up with my own phrase for it, "I've been Sandlered." Well, with that, I'll end this post, but expect another post after this weekend or early next week.
iPod A-Z song update: "Norwegian Wood" by the Beatles
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