I had a wintry weekend. On Saturday I went skating with a good sized group at the arena. There were a lot more people on the ice than the first time we went, and I liked that. It reminded me of skating with my family at Nathan Phillip Square a little, though it wasn't that crowded. Speed skating is a big thing here. Both times I've gone, the middle of the arena has been designated for speed skating practice where these little tykes whiz around and practice their form. I think a number of my students either speed skate or play hockey. I'd like to watch them some time.
Then, yesterday, I went snow boarding. First of all, it only cost me 55,000 won for the whole day, including transportation and rentals, so that was pretty sweet. But we had to get up at 5 am, which wasn't so sweet. Then we sat on an overheated bus for 3 hours which wasn't the best part of the trip either. (Disclaimer about Korean buses: they all have a TV in the front where a wide variety of Korean shows are displayed without any regard to time of day - including gruesome war movies, gross horror movies, loud Korean celebrity shows, and something like Korean idol. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to it.) But we got there and were a little disappointed to find out that only 2 of the runs were open - which is understandable given that there isn't any snow and the temperature is well above 0 every day. It turned out to be OK though, since I was snowboarding - a skill I certainly haven't mastered yet. And though I did improve my snowboarding talent, I also spent a lot of the time rolling, bumping, or sliding down the hill. I've discovered that often times I develop skills (at least athletic skills) by pushing myself as far as I can go and then finding out a way to deal with it. In the case of snowboarding, this means that I just can't help but go as fast as I can down the hill, much of the time just on the edge of control, and many times going over that edge. So I had some pretty bad falls. I lost my glasses twice before I thought better about wearing them. And I think I caught a couple people smirking at me afterwards, possibly wondering if I enjoy tumbling down hills. I am sore today, all over. But I had a great time. It wasn't busy at all, so we didn't have to wait in lines at the lifts, and I could tumble freely without worrying about taking anyone down with me. It was a wonderful sunny day and the company was great. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera to give you visuals.
On another note, there has been increasing tensions between North and South Korea recently. And while it is surely concerning to everyone here, Koreans in particular, it has been hard for me to really get an idea of how the Koreans around me feel about it. One guy that I met yesterday, who is from Pohang, said that he is pretty sure there's no real danger of a full blown war starting. I didn't ask him why he thought that, but I'm of the opinion that most South Koreans would hate for it to come to war. I'm not sure what to think about it. My kindergartners were pretty angry about it. Larry even suggested reusing our trash as projectiles to throw at the North Koreans - we've been learning about reducing, reusing, and recycling in science, so I was pretty impressed with his creativity.
Thanks for reading,
Michael
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