Weekend Round-Up Part Two

Well it’s somewhere between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and I have a lot of blogging to catch up on. I really want to tell you about the President of Kumdo na hKorea but everything has to be chronological…

So now we’re on to Sunday.

As usual, the day was dominated by church (“chuh-chi”) as the Koreans say. It was actually quite a lot of fun though as the kids were putting on a variety show for their parents. We spend the morning getting ready after a very short kiddies service, which sure beats the adult one. As Geonmo is the leader of the taekwondo group and their master took a liking to me, I hung out with them all day. The master is a strange guy…I’ll talk more later when I put up a photo. Everything had a tenuous religious link but most of it was just feel-good stuff for the whole family.

 <- These cuties were reading some kind of letter I think. I couldn’t understand enough to figure it out though.

The following are taken from the taekwondo rehearsal. Unfortunately my camera died before the actual show so I can’t show you their uniforms. You should recognise Geonmo by now, but he’s wearing the white top with black sleeves and is the focus of the photos:

This is the video of their rehearsal. Geonmo won’t be winning any prizes for his dancing, but his taekwondo itself is great. Especially those kicks! -

Next to practice were two girls performing the Wondergirls’ “Tell Me” dance. If you don’t know it, it’s from Korea’s most popular girl-group. Both the song and the dance were huuuuuuuge last year. If you think this pair are good, you should see me do it. I’m the best, yo.

This is the master and I (I can’t remember his name). He’s brilliant, I really like him. He’s a bit strange, I thought I had another goblin-prince on my hands because he looks odd too. But he’s a lovely, lovely man. He’s 32 years old so I suspect he’s not long out of the army (all Korean men have to do a mandatory 3 years before they’re 30). He’s tough but loving towards the kids. With me he was eager to speak with me as much as possible and make sure that I was comfortable, had water, had lunch, etc. He gave me every possible means of communicating with him once I return home. Once I remember his name, I definitely will

(I look awful!)

As the show was about to start, the boys put on their oh-so-cute uniforms:

 

The concert itself was great fun. One thing that surprised me though was the attitude of the parents. Whenever I had school concerts or whatever, everyone’s parents came and they all stayed for the whole thing. It’s  a deal – you watch other people’s kids and they watch yours. Here however, people came and went as they pleased. Often it was too noisy to hear the children. Nobody else seemed to mind though, maybe it’s the done thing. I thought it was sad though.

After church we went to get my beautiful hanbok! Ooooooh, it’s gorgeous! Lucky for me, the traditional colour for girls is bright pink. Hooray! Putting it on is a fairly complicated affair and it’s bloody boiling when all the layers are in place. I love it though. It was a really, really hot day, so I look awful in the photos. You’re just getting the bare minimum to get a taste of what the hanbok looks like:

<- Ta-da! Sohee and I being very Korean.

We were all in a festive mood so we started jamming some yodel music. Both the kids yodel in a choir so we put it to good use. Sohee played the accordion, Geonmo played the guitar. I played the spoons and performed a kabuki dance to a traditional yodel song. Marvellous.

We had cheap Japanese food yet again that night and proceedings drew to a close.

Love,

Siobhán xxx