Amanda Takes Off...

North Korea's nuclear tests weren't felt by me and I'm fine!

My friend Leaf is in Thailand. After their bloodless coup he sent out several emails, one of which said that what Western news was reporting was not what was being felt in Thailand.

I watched some CNN tonight and it seems that South Korea is hightened and tensions are mounting and the people are fearful but...tell that to the folks at my studio. Heck, Master and I talked about it during break tonight and he said, "World, ahhhh! [Throwing hands in the air.] South Korea, what? What? What's big deal? No problem. [Looking around the room and shrugging.]"

I didn't feel anything, I haven't noticed anything different on the street, things are being reported on the news but it's mostly freaked out foreigners and politicians and talking heads. While I'm sure that there are Koreans who are terrified, I'm not seeing it around me...and no, I am not coming home!

Last Tuesday Heidi took me out to the Hyehwa area of Seoul, where we went to a play, ate lunch, and I got singled out. We went with her friend Clair and met another friend after the play.

We went to Apple Theater and watched 유리가면: 5. It's a play based on some comic strip (I think) that's being put together episode by episode, with a new episode about once a year. Heidi and Clair know one of the actors and we had lunch with him afterwards. I think Heidi and Clair thought I was bored, but that wasn't the case. It was all in Korean, though, so of course I didn't always laugh at the right times!

Here's a shot of us eating lunch. We had two different types of mandu soup and Clair and Actor ate some Japanese style noodles. Heidi kept pushing food off on me until I started doing the same. "Eat! Eat, Heidi! Eat up!"

This style of sharing food freaks Mom out. She's afraid that I'm going to catch Hep A. (I have been told that 1 in 3 Koreans have Hep A.) In fact, Actor asked me if I was disgusted by the way Koreans eat, because one of his Italian friends doesn't like it. It does take some getting used to, everyone throwing their chopsticks in whatever food they want. Luckily, I got my Hep A vaccine before I left. It was the one thing my GP in Atlanta was good for; she told me a full year before I even considered coming here that if I was going to travel internationally, I should get Hep A shots.

And here is a photo only so you can see the smudge on my arm. See that? It's a bruise (four days old in this photo, it got much worse!) from Blue's freesparring during my belt test. Two guys have commented on this bruise, one claiming it was good the guy didn't go easy on me, the other claiming he was mean.

I still have the bruise, more than one week later!

Tonight's class was good. Heidi had homework, so I stumbled out some bad sentence in Korean (at least I used a subject marker!) about how she'd come at nine. It may not have been correct, but he understood! Again, small steps.

I learned a new kick, 나래차기. Something about wings (says Master, the dictionary says it's "oars").* You basically do a jumping double roundhouse kick, alternating legs. I really got teased (friendly, of course!) for the first time in class by Master because of it. I wasn't keeping my hands in the right position; they were flying out behind me like...well...wings. So I quit that and he told me to quit jumping forward—I needed to be jumping up. So I tried again and nearly fell on my right knee. All he said was, "JUNGSHIM!" with a big grin. Blasted jungshim....

I also learned a new stance, 범서기, or tiger stance. Master informed me that "baum" comes from Chinese. It's an interesting stance, one that I'll need to practice quite a bit.

Finally, I got a big old "Mix and Match to Get the Block" game from Master.

See the large numbers? Two-three-one?

Let's start with section one. The same two words are repeated in this section. Running top to bottom, they read 안판목 (inside wrist—lit. inside arm neck, I love the way they make "wrist" and "ankle"!) and 바깥판목 (outside wrist). Section two reads 몸통 (trunk of the body, literally "trunk barrel"). Section three reads 안막기 and 바깥막기. Go back—wait! See the "안" and "바깥" we used before? Yep! Those mean "inside block" and "outside block."

So you pick and choose in order to essentially get "inside wrist body block from outside to inside," "outside wrist body block from outside to inside," "inside wrist body block from inside to outside," and "outside wrist body block from inside to outside."

See that word at the very bottom? 가위막기? In short, when you put a bunch of these things together, you get "scissors block."

Now to memorize the parts of this Mix and Match game...

I left a small gift for Chusok at Master's house and in turn he gave me a bag of fruit. Of course that was unnecessary, but appreciated. I got some huge, huge pears (배, the Asian pears, not the American style ones) and apples. The pears are so large they're about as big as both of my fists! I know part of my breakfast meal tomorrow...

Oh! And Heidi and I both got our new belts tonight. Mine is now brown with a red stripe.

* Tuesday edit: 날개 is "wings." 나래 is how it's pronounced on the east coast.