8 Seasons in the Land of the Morning Calm

Waking up at 6:00 AM is not on my list of things to do on a regular basis. Call it "lazy"- call it the well-thought out reasoning of a rational mind- but 6:00 AM is way too early. Regardless of my wants, the alarm rolled me out of bed at the buttcrack of dawn to tackle the tasks of (A) waking my sleeps-like-the-dead husband, and (B) prepare for what was certain to be a mentally draining day. One of the most difficult aspects of testing in Kumdo in Korea, is that we often have absolutely no clue as to what's going on. While the other students know the drill, not to mention speak the language, we are tossed to the wind and forced to trust our wits, our minor grasp of the language, and powers of improvisation/observation. Tests and competitions can be mentally draining. As we entered the vast auditorium, we became undeniably visible as the Westerners. While the students at our school are accustomed to our presence and appearance, most of the rest of Gwangju is not...

L-R:  Dong-Gyun, Moon-Suk, Master Lee, Alex, Audrey, Min-Ho

Alex 대나무 배기      

Audrey 대나무 베기

which chingums to Damyang go? This photo was taken this morning while we prepared for our trip to Damyang to cut bamboo. Master Lee, in the blue hat, is determining which chingums (swords) will best suit each student. Next Sunday will be our third trip, and will hopefully yield some "action shots".

Yesterday a2 began our search for a new apartment to go with the new job and our new year in Korea. Today we began moving in. That's right, the highly efficient Koreans leave the bullshit for those with the time, and get business taken care of. Needless to say, with only two weeks until we HAVE to move out, this fast find is a relief.   We want to give a shout-out to our friend Na-Yeong who acted as our translator. Without her help, apartment hunting would've been excruciating!