Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Kumdo

The most exciting thing I have been doing as of late is that I started taking Kumdo lessons. Some of you may have heard of the Japanese equivalent which is called Kendo (of course the Korean version is far superior). Kumdo is a traditional Korean sword fighting that I classify as a cross between fencing and Tae Kwon Do.

There’s no use in doing anything half-a$$ed so I have signed up for 1-2 hour lessons every Monday to Friday. I have been taking lessons for about a month and I have my own bamboo sword now. We are still just learning the steps involved and hitting dummies but I hope to be cracking people over the head sometime soon.

Also I am learning Korean when I take lessons because my instructor barely knows English. About the worst thing of it is that everyday we do a ceremony at the end where we have to kneel and sit on our feet in the traditional Korean way. My body is not made to do this and its kind of sad that the most pain I get from my swordfighting lessons is from sitting on my feet.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Same, Same but Different, Different

It is only a few months back when I first got to this Land of the Morning Calm. I was in a new country with a new language and everything was so exciting and well, New. I remember being so excited about doing the simplest things, like "oh wow, I just bought something from a Korean store" or " I just ordered at a restaurant". A lot of those novelties have worn off and just as we get into our daily routines in Canada, I feel I've sort of got into a routine here. I feel like I haven't been doing anything too exciting as of late.





I made a trek down to Ulsan where one of my buddies from the U of A is teaching. I got to ride on the KTX, which is Korea's high speed train. I never did find out how fast it actually went because when I asked my students they simply told me that it 'goes just as fast as any train in Japan' (everything here is compared to Japan.) Anyways, it did not really seem to be going very fast so I hope that Japanese trains are indeed faster or the state of the world's rail technology really sucks :)





Ulsan and the country on the way there were typically Korea. Just small mountains and cities full of apartments wherever you looked. To be honest, I've seen this scene enough that I slept for the majority of the train ride. Anyways we had a good trip and it is always nice to see a familiar face.

Nick, Me (obviously the most excited to be in Ulsan), Laura and Tara



Speaking of familiar faces, I have not become one in Korea yet. Im still just as much a novelty as when I first got here. For example, I got on the subway at the same time as a gorgeous Korean girl today but the whole car seated across from us were not looking at her, they were looking at me!

Friday, December 01, 2006

A cute letter

They had to write letters in one of my coworkers class this week and one of my students gave this to me afterwards. It is more authentic in person but I thought it was quite cute:

"Deer Clark

Hello
My name is Clark (J.r) too.
We are have a same name!
But you are men! Im boy. It is
diffrent.

I'm sorry, because I don't
have many speak. I don't have
what I want to say. I don't have
a idea Sorry
bye

from Clark j.r"

I feel special because this little boy(about 9 or 10 years old) who used to be named Eddy changed his name to Clark Jr. Upon hearing this, one of my students told me that he was changing his name to Junior Clark. I told him that this was too confusing and he should just stick with David.

Why do I feel extra special? Well I have only been teaching for 4 months and I have already had two kids try to change their name to my name. On the other hand, my mom and my auntie have been teaching for around 20 years and I have never once heard of any students trying to change their names to Penny or Pat. :) Too bad.

This letter is now posted on my fridge next to Kevin's writing assignment. Here is my favourite excerpt from that paper:

"I'm very very fat and go to W Academy. I like ham, computer game and soccer."

Without even knowing Kevin, I guess it is obvious that Kevin likes ham a little more than soccer. Truth be told he is a little big but not too fat!