Get Folky With It

My second day in Korea, we had an excursion as a group to a traditional Korean Folk Village, which is a funny name because the village is actually located in the middle of a large city. The compound, however, was huge, and there was a lot to take in. We got through maybe half of the site before we had to leave four hours later. Yes, we had bulgogi for lunch, which was a definite crowd-pleaser.

The folk village had traditional dancing, which was done by guys with streamers attached to their hats which they kept spinning while they played on salmunori instruments and dropped some impressive beats. Other beats they played made me realize where I got my mad skills when I used to play "the drums" on my mom's pots and pans in Hendersonville.

I could fill this blog with pictures, but I'll try to keep that to a minimum, since Korea pictures can be found on Facebook. I'll place quite a few here, too, just not as many as there will be on my Facebook page, so go there to get visually stunned. Note: don't look in the photo album entitled "Thinkin' 'bout Drinkin" from 2009. Those were dark times I do not remember...

At the village we saw folk dancing, music, an equine skills performance, traditional Korean houses, and a children's theme park. Random for a folk village, I know, but then this is Korea. There has to be SOMETHING flashy. There was also an arcade, so of course we went in, and my new South African friend Riekus (who is similar in size to my dad) fell to my mighty swing in a test-of-strength game. Looks like someone knows how to drop the hammer...

Tuesday we had our official opening ceremony, and they gave demonstrations of traditional Korean dancing and a performance by the K-Tigers, a group of young kids that do TaeKwonDo. It was held on the gorgeous campus of Seoul University.



After the orientation, we had a photo scavenger hunt in Seoul. Seoul is an incredible city, and there were a lot of sights to see, but we got there late and were in a time crunch so we weren't able to stop and gawk much. Oh, and yes, it was colder than cold. Several girls, a few guys, and all the South Africans were miserable. It was the type of cold where you didn't want to take out your camera and snap a picture because if you exposed any skin to the air, it felt like you were being stabbed by needles.

We're going back to Seoul tomorrow (as are 225 other TaLK scholars) so I'm going to take many more pictures. After waiting for a few girls who hopped in a taxi that drove them around Seoul for 45 minutes (not by choice), we drove back to Seoul. Sleep on the bus? Not when there's K-Pop to listen to!

The next day actual lectures started, which we have been in for several days now. They keep us pretty busy with lectures all day and after-class mini-programs (like salmunori lessons, cooking lessons, and Korean language lessons). I've also gotten back into working out regularly (two days in a row counts!), so that's been great as well. I'll get into all of that more in my next blog, which if I keep the current pace, should be up sometime in March.

Kidding.

I'll most likely post again Saturday or Sunday night. Hope everyone back in the States is happy, healthy and warm.