Weekend in Daegu

I've only been here just over a week and a half, so I decided to stay in the city and become more familiar with my surroundings. Saturday morning, I went to my second Korean class. It was really fun. The Korean teachers are so nice. They said we're going to have a picnic at the one of the large universities at the beginning of November. Here's a pic of my class:

After class, I checked out a department store nearby and tempted by some cheesy bread in the food section. So much for a healthy diet. Afterwards, I was really tired, so I headed home and took a nap. Gwen called me a couple hours later and she, Diana and I went to Costco. The Costco in Daegu has two floors. One for household products like chairs and detergent and another floor just for food. It's huge. I was tempted again by a huge container of cheese balls, but I was able to resist. I guess I was really craving cheese. I bought some basics, like cereal, milk, and bagels. A dozen bagels was about $5, not too shabby.

The next day, I went downtown and met up with my friend, Walita. She's from Toronto and teaches in another part of Daegu. The plan was to go to the Colourful Daegu Festival. Unfortunately, we didn't exactly know where the festival was. We decided to just start walking in the direction we thought it was. Along the way, we went down any alley that looked interesting. Unfortunately, we ventured down dead dog alley where every table had a skinned dead dog. They weren't even cut up! There were entire dogs lying there with tails, teeth, and heads. I thought I would be okay with the whole eating dog thing because meat is meat, but there's something about the sight of a whole dead dog that just seems wrong. Part of me wanted to take a picture, but I'm sure no one wants to see that.

We eventually made it to the festival by walking along the Sincheon River and asking many people on the way. It was so much fun. There was a lot of music and dancing. My favourite part was trying on a traditional Korean dress. There was a photographer there, who wouldn't stop taking pictures of Walita and I. He would make us wear masks, smile, pretend to laugh...We may end up in a magazine or billboard one day. We went along with it for a bit, but afterwards we just walked away from him. Our wonderful day ended with some Korean BBQ. It was soooo good. I think the lady working there knew we were completely clueless and stood by our table the entire time cooking and cutting our meat. It was a very tasty ending to a great day.

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Taekwondo!!!

I started taekwondo this week and absolutely love it. Diana and I go to a gym about 10 minutes from where we live. Our classes run from Monday to Friday for one hour a day. Diana's only been here a month and already has her yellow belt. Hopefully, I can get one in a month too.

Our teacher is called Sa Beom Nim (Not actually his name. I think it's a title of resepect). He's really funny and nice. Although he doesn't know English, we get along fine by copying his movements. It also pushes me to learn Korean so I can understand what he's saying. So far I learned the names of basic moves like punch, kick, and block, and I've also been working on learning body parts. I'm starting to understand him more every day.

So far, I've learned various blocks, punches, and kicks. I think my main weakness is my lack of flexibility. Sa Beom Nim has been pushing me to stretch more and more every day. In less than a week, I already feel myself getting more flexible. It's an amazing workout!! Diana and I are usually sweaty and tired by the end of it. Hopefully by doing this 5 days a week, I can drop a couple pounds and become fighting machine.