11.29.2009

Ko-Rea-Tae-Kwon-DO!

It seems like it has been forever since we last blogged. Sorry for those that check regularly (cough cough Brittany Williams cough cough). A lot has happened in our life and we have remained fairly busy.


First off, two other couples and us have started taking Taekwondo. Taekwondo originates in Korea and many of our students have been taking it from an early age and could for sure kick our butts. We take Taekwondo 3 times a week (as well as having Korean class 1 night a week) so our week nights remain full and active. I think that that will help our weeks fly by pretty fast! Taekwondo is awesome, but sometimes I wonder if, in fact, we are really in a boot camp. Our Taekwondo Master works us out pretty hard. The 1st 20-ish minutes of class is INTENSE stretching and there have been many times when I sit cringing waiting for Austin's body to pop loudly or just break in half. Our 2 instructors laugh often at my not-so-flexible husband and are desperately trying to make him as limber as can be....baby steps, baby steps! The next bit of class is usually hard core work outs, anything from various crunches to sprints to partner wheelbarrow! Hah, that one was fun. The last third-ish of class is actually learning the punches and kicks and practicing our loud grunts every time we strike a pose. I would say, Taekwondo makes you feel like you are ready to go kick some serious butt and take on the World. We will let you know if that happens :)





Thanksgiving-Korea Style was spent at the Seaman's Club, a restaurant right on the water by the port of Busan that caters to the US Navy. When we pulled up to the restaurant I was actually informed that we were technically on US territory and it kinda gave me warm fuzzies inside. We had a Thanksgiving Buffet full of turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, salad and apple and pumpkin pie! It was surprisingly really good and for sure hit the spot after 3 months of Korean food. We celebrated the fact that there was NO Kimchi at all on the buffet and would have gotten mad and protective of our holiday food if there were! We were with one Korean lady and she was like, "Where's the Kimchi? I need Kimchi!" and we all just laughed. Koreans eat Kimchi at every meal and are taught from an early age that it is one of the healthiest things that they can consume...in actuality, it's sick and tastes like sour trash. For the non-Kimchi connoisseurs, the dish is fermented cabbage or radishes seasoned with onions, garlic, horseradish, red peppers and ginger. In general, Thanksgiving was yummy and fun but it definitely made us miss home knowing that our families were celebrating it together in either New Orleans or the Schauers' South Texas deer lease.

This past weekend was our friend Mara's Birthday celebration! Her Birthday was on Thanksgiving Day so her boyfriend, Drew, decided to surprise her with one of her good college friends coming in from another Korean city (Daejeon) and a bunch of people meeting at a bar to give her a quasi-surprise Birthday Party. We had a great celebration full of Long Life Bar (with its neon lights, drink coolers and sporadic techno-esque musical light show), another random bar and an end-of-the-night commencement at a Noraebang. A Noraebang is a modern must-do in Korea that entails a bunch of friends going into one room that has couches, disco balls, tambourines and a Karaoke system and singing their hearts out to whatever song they want to. The hits of last night were: Baby Got Back, Layla, Get'n Jiggy With It, Since You Been Gone, Wonderwall and many others. For some of us it was our first Noraebang experience, but we enjoyed it so much there are sure to be many others.

We are looking forward to our Winter Break starting December 22nd where we will have about 5 weeks off! My parents (Lauren's) are planning on visiting at the end of January and we are going to travel to Thailand with them.

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