DAY 1
Well we made it, tired and hungry, but happy to finally be here. I'm going to try and keep a mini blog of some of the things we'll be doing and seeing while we're here.
We got into Seoul at about 7pm yesterday, which was Saturday here and were greeted by Master Cha and two of his people. After much greeting and translating by Master Kunkel, we piled (and I do mean PILED) into three vehicles with all our luggage and drove about an hour to a dojang for a meeting. There were some really cool sights along the way that I can't wait to see when it's light, but mainly what I noticed is that things tend to be more compact here. Roadways are narrower, and buildings go up instead of out. People drive REALLY close to each other but everyone seems to have mega ninja skills and no one crashes.
Anyway, we got to the school and Master Cha hooked us up with some seriously cool Team USA t-shirt and shorts sets. And we looked at a couple of sweat suit options for everyone in the dojang. One was heavier for winter and one was lighter for summer. Not sure which one we'll go with, but I'm hoping for the latter. :)
After some talking and some pictures (which I'll try to post later), we were assigned to our wonderfully generous host families. Well, at least the girls were. I'm not sure what happened to the boys. ;) I was given into the care of a cheerful young lady whose name I can't remember except that it means "happy flower" and her husband and 8 year old daughter. They speak English fairly well (Thank the Lord God on High!!) and have been wonderful. They gave me their daughter's room, which is a cozy little thing about 7x7 feet. The bed takes up one entire wall and is very, very hard, but at least it's long enough. I was a little worried at first since one of the first comments my hostess made was that she thought I was too tall to be comfortable in the room. The rest of the apt is quite small as well, but it's very neat and clean and has a good sense of order.
Overall, despite the extreme lack of sleep and some minor frustrations, the trip has been good and I look forward to training at Master Cha's dojang this morning. I'm especially looking forward to watching Josiah and Dillen practice their flips under an 8 foot ceiling that they can touch without stretching! :)
DAY 2
Yesterday was incredible. In the morning, my host family made me bacon and eggs for breakfast, much to my relief! There were differences, such as eating bacon with a fork and bread (which is evidently butter bread) that was so light and fluffy as to almost be a pastry. Then the four of us went for a walk around this bit of the city. When we first went out, there was a sound that I could not figure out. I thought it was electricity running through the wires above the street. It had that buzzing quality to it and it would come and go at periodic intervals. As we walked, I realized it was coming from the ground, not the wires and it was, at times, so loud that it was hard to talk over it. When I asked what it was, Daejin, the father, pulled his ever present iPhone out and looked up the English word for me. It was cicadas. Grasshoppers, or something like them, that band together and sound this way in the spring and summer months. Amazing to think that a bunch of bugs could make a racket like that, and all in harmony with each other!
After our walk, we went to the dojang for about half an hour to run through our breaking routines. The place is too small for the demo team to practice, so it didn't take long. Then, we went shopping!
My hosts, Daejin, who is a Civil engineer, his wife, Yoon, who is a violin teacher, and their beautiful 6 year old daughter, who prefers to go by her American name, Evelyn, took me to Myong Dong, a city famous for its shopping. There were all kinds of things for sale from clothing to bracelets to bags and belts and statues and pottery and such. There was also lots of character stuff for sale. Mario and Pokémon, Angry Birds and Yu Gi Oh, and some others I didn't recognize. I got a leather bracelet for myself but didn't find anything that wasn't really pricey for anyone else. The best part about this place, however, was the Kalgusu. Which is....soup. When we first got there, we went to a restaurant that was famous for this particular soup, and was very popular with foreigners. It was amazing. A clear broth with noodles and meat that I'm going to assume was beef, and mandu, a rice- wrapped dumpling-ish thing with pork tofu and vegetables in it. It sounds so simple but it was amazingly good. Oh, and kimchee, the super-hot cabbage dish that Korea is known for. It looks rather menacingly red, so I decided to pass it up that time. The fact that there is a box of tissues at the table in lieu of napkins speaks to the pervasiveness of this dish and i heard as much nose blowing as talking in that place. My hosts made sure to ask for a fork for me after laughing hysterically at my attempts with chopsticks. They took lots of pictures of that.
After walking about Myong Dong for a bit, we decided to go to Itawan and see what it had to offer. I have to say, I liked Myong Dong better, but Itawan is where I found presents for my family. There was a lot of Americans in this city, mostly due, I think, to the American military base that was positioned nearby. We found a lot of booths selling much the same thing. Socks that had the Nike, Adidas and Klein logos on them, scarves, baseball caps and visors, statuettes and chinese mediation spheres, and lots and lots and LOTS of underwear. Boxers mostly, with either the Calvin Klein logos or prints of Korean money on them. There was also Starbucks, Outback Steakhouse, Cold Stone Ice Cream and McDonalds, which I'm coming to believe, has completely taken over the world.
After a couple of hours of swimming, um, I mean wandering, around (did I mention it's a little humid here?) we headed back to the car and came home. We were all pretty tired and I decided to lie down for a few minutes. About 2 hours later, Yoon woke me up for dinner. I'm so glad she did because they had made bulgogi especially for me. Bulgogi is thinly cut up strips of beef made with a sweet sauce and vegetables and served with sticky rice. I decided to forgo the chopsticks this time and proceeded to shovel this marvelous concoction down my throat as fast as i could. It was delicious. There was kimchee here too, looking rather less combustible and since Evelyn was eating it without bursting into flame, I decided I would try it. It was actually pretty good. And it was actually rather hot. Quite hot. And I had only a little piece that they scraped a bunch of the fire paste off of. But I've always known I'm a wuss when it comes to spice. Hey, at least i tried it, right? And anyone who knows me knows that's a good thing. :)
After dinner, I tried to play a game of Rummikub with Evelyn but I was so tired from 3 days of no sleep that I think I helped her win rather than actually trying to play. Daejin and Yoon graciously helped me not get absolutely creamed by their fiendish little daughter and then let me go to bed. I think I was asleep within about 15 seconds.
Korea is an interesting place of contrasts. The apartment I'm staying in is comfortable and has all the amenities I'm used to, but it's also very basic. I think it's about 500 square feet total. Maybe less. There are 3 tiny bedrooms and one bathroom, which is very functional but certainly not spacious. The kitchen is about 6 feet by 5 feet and the table they eat at actually slides out of the cupboard area. The car, however, is a different story. It's black and has leather interior, and is decked out with all the latest technology. A good sized GPS dominates the top of the dashboard, and I've seen that GPS do double duty as a television. Which they watch. While they're driving. And they still don't crash in the crazy narrow and crowded conditions they drive in. They have the latest phones, and though I haven't seen it on, my host family has a large flat screen TV set in their tiny living room. Tech seems to be much more important to them than the size of their homes or what clothing they wear.
The other interesting thing I noticed was that, although Korean culture in general is very big on honor and respect and status and such, the entertainment and anything that advertises or promotes a product is waaaay over the top. Most ads are cartoonish, in the anime style. They're loud and bright and really rather obnoxious. I don't know if this is because the culture is so reserved that these ads are the best way to catch attention, or if it's a rebellion against the old traditions, or what, but this stuff is everywhere.
I'm so glad I came to Korea. I've very much enjoyed my time here so far, largely due to the wonderful family I'm staying with. I'm loving seeing new things and trying new foods. We're going to see some of the palaces and things today, so I'll try and post more pictures as I go. This is my last day with my host family, so I want to make the best of it.
DAY 3
Yesterday was an interesting day. After a breakfast of cereal, bacon and...salad, we joined the rest of the team for practice at the dojang. We ran through our breaking, the team walked carefully through their routine a couple times and then we had mass amounts if pictures taken of us. Some of the smaller teens and Ms. Kristi did the small zip line than ran the width of the gym and we generally just goofed off for about an hour. I noticed some of the boys looked a little tired and it turns out they spent much of the night before exploring the town. It's very safe here and we've seen young kids out playing and riding bikes well past 11:00. So the boys are enjoying their freedom and are getting a taste of bachelorhood.
After the paparazzi spree, we all went to lunch together at a Chinese food place. We had 2 choices, black bean spaghetti (which was actually very good), or shrimp fried rice. I chose the latter since it sounded safer but I made sure to try Josiah’s spaghetti. We also got egg drop soup and fried mandu, which were kinda like triangular egg rolls in rice paper. Very tasty. I also tried some kind of yellow pickled vegetable that remains a mystery as to its identity. It was good, though. For dessert we got what looked like doughnut holes with black pepper on them. They were very sweet and it wasn't pepper. Maybe poppy seeds or something?
In the restaurant, a couple of the host families (including mine) sat with us and we talked while we ate. They were very impressed with Josiah's grasp of the language and with the fact that most of us could read and write Korean fairly well. We asked a ton of questions which they were pleased to answer and the women seemed very taken with both Dillen and Josiah, both of whom just hated the extra attention (enter sarcasm font here).
After lunch we all went our separate ways. The girls went off with their host families and the boys...taught. The rest of the day. I'm so glad I'm a girl! I took Ms. Kristi with me since she had been partnered with Master Kunkel and would have had to stay at the dojang with her and we took off with my family. We wanted to go see a palace or something but there was a typhoon passing by some distance away and for some reason Koreans hate the rain. They huddle in doorways and pull their children close if it's sprinkling at all. Umbrellas are pulled out at the slightest moisture and they step gingerly around puddles and mud.
So we went to the mall. It was a lot like our malls, except their expensive stuff was much more expensive than our expensive stuff. We hit a store that was like Pottery Barn and I got all excited when I saw a beautiful glass bowl with strawberries on it. I immediately pictured it sitting on my table at home full of rich red strawberries and being the envy of all my friends - and then I looked at the price tag. 65,000 won, which is $65. I looked around and saw a glass vase that was pretty good sized, but nothing tremendously special. $99. So we walked around and admired a few neat and unusual things and made sure we didn't break anything for fear we'd have to take out a loan to pay for the damages.
Eventually we found what we were looking for. A small, neat little shop where we could get some good quality souvenirs at good prices. Daejin and Yoon helped us figure out what was good quality and what to stay away from and Kristi and I happily dropped a few dollars on stuff for home. The drive back went quickly and Kristi stayed with us for a little while and visited before she had to go back to her own host family for a special dinner.
My family and I had curry vegetables (including mushrooms, which I actually ate!) leftover bulgogi, salad and rice and then we played several rounds of a fast paced, simple but fun game called Halli Galli. Or something like that. I won a couple times and they all laughed and said it was because I have long arms and big hands. Which is totally untrue.... :)
So today I have to say good-bye to my host family. Daejin is already gone back to work - he took yesterday off to be with us - and I am meeting the team at wherever we'll be for the rest of our time here. I will see my family again on Sunday at our going away party but I will miss them these next few days. They have been so incredible at making me feel at home and comfortable here. They will be in my thoughts and prayers for the rest of my life. I thank God for them and feel truly blessed to have met them.
DAY 4
So yesterday we said goodbye to our host families until Sunday. We packed up all our stuff and they took us to meet up at the dojang where we made sure everyone had rides to the venue where we will be competing. It was about 30-45 minutes away from where we had been. A quick side note on this. Gas here is very, very expensive. I heard it was on the order of 8 or 9 dollars a gallon. So our families and this dojang spent a lot of money just driving us around to all these places. We are all so grateful for their willingness to help us.
At the venue, we got the team checked in and then hung out for a while waiting for the shuttle. We walked around the complex and looked at some of the vendor booths that were setting up early and generally just relaxed. At one point, Amy Grigg broke out her stash of Blow Pops and so we all sat around sucking on lollipops for about a half hour. It was pretty funny to see all of us reading or talking or messing around with suckers sticking out of our mouths.
Later in the day, Ms. Jennice, Ms. Suzanne, Master Kunkel and I went to a meeting where we hoped to get a couple of registration challenges taken care of. I have to give some pretty major kudos to Master Cha. He went to bat for us pretty hard on a couple of things we weren't sure about and really worked his magic. Master Kunkel has also been working tirelessly on this entire trip to make absolutely sure that this is a wonderful, positive experience for the team.
One of the highlights of the day was having the chance to meet Esther, Daniel's sister. She looks a lot like Daniel and he is adorable with her, offering her treats or water, holding her hand and giving her hugs on a regular basis. Esther is very sweet and will happily sit in your lap playing with her Tinker Bell dolls or on someone's iTouch for a long time. Since Master Cha was with us, she got to spend a lot of time with the team and we thoroughly enjoyed having her.
An interesting note on Korean children: There doesn't seem to be a lot of discipline when it comes to raising young Koreans. At first we were a little taken aback by the .... activeness of the little ones and how much they were allowed to get away with. Parents don't seem to keep them in check like most Americans do. Then after a while, we started to wonder if it was due to the fact that starting in Middle School, these kids go to a boarding school for the rest of their education and parents rarely get to see them after that. It might also have something to do with how expensive it is to raise a child here and so most families limit themselves to one. So that one child is pampered and adored to the point that there is very little structure to their discipline because the parents know that their time with their precious little one is limited.
Anyway, back to the team. After the meeting, we walked out of the University complex where we're staying in search of some dinner. We found a Papa John's but it was quite expensive so we went across the street to a Paris Baguette for sandwiches. Some of the teens had already eaten and appeared with Baskin Robbins ice cream, which they shared with the rest of us. Bless their hearts. :) Once all had eaten, it was getting fairly late so we all retired to our dorms on the promise to meet downstairs at 10 in the morning. Everyone was pretty tired by then so we were grateful for the chance to sleep in. Today is the first day of the competition but none of us are actually competing until at least Thursday.
One more thing before I log off. Please continue to keep the team in your prayers. We can feel God at work here and there is some opposition to that work. Please pray for continued health and safety for everyone. We know God is infinitely stronger than whatever might come against us, but we also know that your prayer covering will help tremendously.
DAY 5
Competition started yesterday, but since none of us are competing until Friday, Master Kunkel gave everyone the day off to do whatever. The teens, along with Ms. Cindi and with Mr. Chip Schmitt guiding them, went on an adventure to Itawan and got some shopping done. Master Kunkel, Kristi, Suzanne and I went to the competition to watch the Koreans compete. They've split the tournament into two groups this year. Koreans only compete against Koreans and the rest of us compete against each other. This gives us foreigners a fighting chance to place because the Korean teams are so amazing. Many of them go to Universities that have TKD teams much like our colleges have football or basketball. They're incredible.
On the books for yesterday were fist breaking (a stack of a bunch of bricks that the competitors broke with a knife hand. The winner was the one who broke the most bricks in the stack.), high jump front kick (who could kick the highest and still break the board), Korean all around breaking and taekwondo aerobics. The all-around breaking was very entertaining because a lot of these guys were breaking 4 - 6 boards one at a time without touching the ground. They would do a series of kicks and punches and hit all of the boards in quick succession, often followed by a slingshot back layout breaking two boards at the height of their jump. For those who don't know, a slingshot is when one person jumps onto a partner's folded arms and then catapults up to heights two or three times what he could do on his own. Most of the holders for these breaks were standing on the shoulders of someone who was then standing on a chair. These boards were probably around 25 feet off the ground. Incredible and so fun to watch. I think I got some video so I'll try and post it.
Taekwondo aerobics is an interesting animal. It's basically a dance routine with taekwondo elements thrown in and is set to music. Some teams did slow, sultry things, some did fast paced or traditional themes. Out of the 20-ish groups we saw, only two stood out as being different. The others were all good, of course, and their timing and together-ness was great. But the vast majority of these routines were carbon copies of each other. The same moves were seen in every one and after a while it got very boring. The pressure to conform to a mold here is so strong that very few of the groups had the courage to break it. Winning seemed to be much more important to them than the art of what they were doing. Interestingly enough, the group that took the top spot broke that mold. They had on sweat suit jackets in the beginning which they then pulled off to reveal ---- sequins. Lots and lots of sequins. it was a disco routine and the crowd loved it. So did Kristi Glaze, by the way... ;)
At the end of the day's events, which the rest of the team joined us for, opening ceremonies commenced, with performances of traditional Korean dances and music. It started with a slow stately dance of women in voluminous robes moving impossibly smoothly over the stage in patterns around a large drum set in the middle. Then it picked up and several men with what looked like Lyon's Club hats on came out. Long 20 foot ribbons stuck out of the top of the hat, which the men swung around them like lassos picked up by a black light that was shone on them. It was really cool. More drums came next, wielded by both men and women, booming through the venue, making the seats shake. The performance was very upbeat and very high energy. TKD practitioners came and wove through the traditional portions.
Last, the Kukkiwon demo team came out and just rocked the house with impossible breaks and sequences that were so snap on to each other they looked like they were all one person. Their forms and movements seemed to be absolutely perfect. At one point, several of them were blindfolded in the middle of the stage and there were people on either side of them toward the edges with bells in their hands and apples. On swords. The holder would ring the bell, the breaker would concentrate and then run and do a BACKFLIP to kick the apples off the tips of the swords. The apples exploded every time and the breaker would yell wildly, unhurt. Just incredible to watch.
After the ceremonies, we headed back to the dorms and went to the ginormous indoor mall that is right across the street from the University for dinner. We'd had Korean food for breakfast and lunch that day and most of the team (including me) decided to try something fantastically different for dinner. We looked and looked but couldn't settle on anything affordable. Finally, in the end, after much searching, we went to Burger King. Yes. Burger King. Ugh. But it was burgers and fries and Coke (they don't have Dr. Pepper here) and then milkshakes or something for dessert. We probably made up for any weight loss we'd managed on this entire trip in that one meal. But it was nice to eat something that felt more substantial than rice for a change. Then, to top off the Americana fest we'd started at dinner, we went to what is essentially Wal-Mart, which was located in the basement of the mall. This thing was massive. Bigger than any Wal-Mart I've ever seen. Master Kunkel picked up a couple (okay more than a couple) things for Esther that Kristi and Cindi decided she absolutely must have and then we headed home for bed. We were all exhausted and sticky and ready for a shower and sleep, but in high spirits from the day. Lots of hugs and goofiness followed us to our dorms and we went to bed happy.
Today we'll be going back to the venue to watch more competition. The team will be there today to check out the refs and the standards for breaking and such. We plan to go for a while and then come back here to do laundry and get ready for tomorrow. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. The team is doing very well and we're all having a blast, but we need your support more than ever as we get closer to competing.
DAY 6 & 7
Didn't write last night partially because I was so exhausted I couldn't see straight and partially because not a whole lot happened yesterday other than hanging out at the tournament and watching lots and lots of people perform. The venue is not huge but it's set up like a stadium so there are seats that go 3 or 4 stories into the air. And Korean air conditioning is not tremendously efficient so the section where we had our seats was quite hot. We enjoyed watching the Taekwondo Aerobics competition though, as well as the demo team and the breaking. As I mentioned before, the Hanmandang is separated into two parts: Koreans only compete against each other and then all foreigners compete against each other. This is a very good thing because the Koreans are so amazing that they would win everything every time if they weren't separated out. The acrobatics these people can do is absolutely mind boggling. The countries we've seen the most players from are Iran, China and the USA. There's another US team here that is actually from several different states. It's been fun getting to know them and hanging out.
Today was a little, okay, a LOT more interesting. Creative poomse was today and so was female senior all around breaking. Creative poomse was fun but we were the only female team in our division. Germany had a team of guys and then Iran had two teams, who I think actually did the same form. We were also the only ones in our category to do it to music. Speaking of which, on the bus going to the venue from our dorms this morning, I realized I had forgotten our music! Most of the team was still there but I had no way to contact anyone because no one has cell phones. I panicked, but thank goodness Creston and Andre had decided to come early with us and were willing to go back to the school and get it for me. Kudos to them because they spent an hour and a half riding that bus back and forth to get our music. Thank you boys!
The holding area for the competition was on the second floor and was so hot that i could easily have closed my eyes and pictured myself in the sauna at Lifetime fitness. The good thing about this was that it kept our muscles warm and we didn't stiffen up during the wait for our slot. We went last in our division and got bronze. I'll upload a couple of pictures when I can. In the meantime, I think Ms. Cindi put some up. Mine are the same as hers.
After we were done we went back up to the team and sat down to relax. About 5 minutes later, we got called down to a photo opp that some news crew or something was doing and so we went downstairs to do it. Right in the middle of the shoot, we heard that our breaking was going to be happening very soon so we all rushed back inside and back into the sauna - like holding area. This time the whole team was with us in uniform so they could hold for us.
Ms. Cindi was the first of us to break and she was amazing! She broke every board and you should have seen the looks on the judge’s faces! They were so impressed that an executive could do that well, and gave her a very solid score that put her in second place. Then 3 breakers from Iran and Morocco took their turns and then it was my turn. I broke all my boards except one and was scored a little higher than Cindi solely on difficulty, I think. Ms. Suzanne was next but her break was over time by 11 seconds and she lost major points for that. She did an amazing job, though, and all the judges said that she would have taken gold if her time had been right. Ms. Jennice had the same issue and was penalized heavily for it, but she showed strongly and I have to give her major kudos for getting out there and doing it. So I took third out of ten breakers and Cindi took fourth, but the Kukkiwon is giving two third place medals, so we both get one, which we are totally stoked about.
After this, we watched a few more routines and then we all trooped out to the lunch tent. We got about 10 minutes to eat before Master Cha came and got us and pulled us away for another photo session for the Korean news. We all lined up and had our pictures taken and then Master Kunkel did a quick statement on camera with Master Cha and Master Cho, whose dojang had been hosting us at the beginning of our trip. Then several other people came up and took a bunch of pictures and then we went to another place and took a bunch more pictures with our cameras and with other random people who wanted to get pictures with the USA Team. It's actually pretty amazing. People walk up to us all the time and want to meet us and take pictures with us and shake our hands, both individually or as a group. This was especially noticeable this evening at the international athlete's banquet. At 6pm we all boarded the buses and went to a place about 10 minutes from the venue and entered the absolute most humongous buffet I have ever seen in my life. There was food of every kind. Some I recognized, some I didn't some had eyes, or tentacles or stringy noodly stuff. It was green, purple, yellow, red, blue, brown, black and every other color you can think of. There was soup and veggies and meat and dessert and yogurt and corn dogs and ribs and nachos and fish and chicken and pork and ice cream and jello and so many other things that I have no idea as to what they were. I'll put some pics up pretty soon. There were also many many people from a bunch of different nations there. We sat with Syria on one side and Morocco on the other. We were near Kuwait and Iran and China. And everyone was so friendly and wonderful and it was so much fun. We had a steady stream of people who wanted pictures with us and I swear there was a line out the door at one point of men who wanted pictures with Angela Sallee. She took it all in stride, of course, being the super star that she is and smiled pretty for the five thousand cameras that came her way. The rest of us had some fun too. Angela and I did a little mini-interview with one of the Kukkiwon reps in front of a camera and we got pictures with all the super important mukki-muks that were in the room. I got a couple pictures with the Iranian girls, who were super nice and also with Ellie, a sweet young woman who is the daughter of the Egyptian Team Coach and who speaks five different languages. Five! All in all, it was a long, exhausting, wonderful, exhilarating day full of so many new things and fun experiences. Which pretty much sums up this whole trip so far. :)
My posts for the next couple of days might be a little sketchy. This is our last night in the dorms where I'm sure to have internet. Tomorrow and Sunday we'll be sleeping somewhere else (though I'm not exactly sure where, yet) and there's no guarantee I'll be able to get on. If nothing else, I'll try and keep good notes and update at the airports on Monday (Sunday, your time). We get to go to the Kukkiwon tomorrow and we'll be taking lots and lots of pictures of the team members doing fun things there. We’ll also be experiencing a Korean spa and some other fun activities. The demo team goes on tomorrow at 9am, which is 6pm in Colorado, so be praying and we'll let you know how it went as soon as we can.
DAY 8, 9 & 10
Two days ago (or was it three now?) we competed again. The day started with Josiah and Andre competing in the Junior III all around breaking division. As soon as Andre finished (Josiah went first), the team was hustled over to the main platform for the demo team performance. Thailand was supposed to go first, but they weren’t in the area yet so they were making us go first. Master Kunkel argued hard for the seven minutes we were supposed to have in order to give the boys a break before performing. She was able to buy a few minutes, which was enough. The team set up, the music started and it began. They did beautifully and the crowd loved them. Lots of oohing and ahhhh-ing going on throughout. I saw several girls look astounded when Angela did her leg control thing and everyone cheered for Josiah’s J-step break. The biggest moment for me was the power breaks. Five full size adult pine boards set on blocks with NO SPACERS. Many of the teams, all very experienced and strong, with young men going in to break these things failed to even break the top one. Josiah had taken Angela’s place for the break when we had found out, but Alyssa was still doing hers and we were all concerned. Cameron and Josiah plowed through their boards as if they were air and I held my breath as Alyssa came up. She put all her power behind it and smashed every single one to kindling! I was so excited! Dillen came next and hit the boards hard enough to go through the floor but the support they were on failed and the boards slipped out. He still managed to break 3 of them despite the malfunction and the demo went on. Josiah nailed his J-step and Josh hit the top board way hard enough to break it but it was quite a bit harder than the boards we use at home and it didn’t go. He nailed it though, and the crowd loved his acrobatics.
When they were done, we all held our breaths for their score. It showed as 59.8 out of a hundred and my jaw dropped. Really? 59?? We knew the team’s choreography was out of the box and that it was very different from everyone else’s, but we’d still hoped for a good showing. Then the next team went. China did all the normal elements that every single other team was doing and we watched their score, expecting it to be quite a bit higher since they’d followed the mold. It wasn’t. 58.4 showed and we yelled happily. We had beat a team that did exactly what everyone else was doing!
Iran went next. Iran has 2 teams: an all male team and an all female team due to their religious stigma against mixing the genders. The rules state that demo teams must have at least 2 female members on them so they were starting with a voluntary handicap. They were very good though. 9 men in the prime of their lives are bound to be good. They took the top spot by 1.4 points. The women’s team went next and scored much lower, followed by Vietnam. We were worried about this one, since they also did all the normal stuff and were fairly decent. They too, scored lower than us and we all went nuts. The other USA team performed after Vietnam and we watched for a while before we started cheering encouragingly. We wanted to make sure we were safe first. ;) Last went Thailand who, despite their tactic of being purposefully late to go last, still didn’t do very well and took last place. We were second!! Master Cha had called us down for yet another photo shoot so we went as slowly as we respectfully could to see our spot and went nuts in the aisles when we saw it. Kristi was beside herself when it finally hit her that her incredible choreography had won in a world championship competition.
After that, it was a whole lot of hurry up and wait. The awards ceremony took about 4 hours to complete, but it was really fun to get up on that huge stage in front of massive amounts of cameras and news crews to receive our rewards. Alyssa, Megan and I got our bronze and the team went up to get their silvers. We got a nice trophy for both events as well, which was a nice surprise. Because TKD is so huge in Korea, the different Universities compete against each other regularly and have the normal rivalries going on. They take turns doing their cheers in the stands (which all sound the same and seem to sound something like “Hoo Ga Hoo Ga Hoo Ga Twa!!!) and trying to out do one another. It’s really astonishing how much volume they can put out.
Once the ceremony was ended, we went with the other USA team to the Kukkiwon. It was technically closed, but Master Cha was once again able to hook us up. We took pictures on the main mats and then outside in the pagoda. We went to the Adidias store and some of us bought some souvenirs and uniforms and bags and such. Master Kunkel got some fun little things for the little dragons classes to go with the other neat things we were already bringing home.
At this point, it was raining pretty hard and we had planned on taking the subway back to the place where we were going to spend the night. We walked in the warm rain for about a mile, splashing and playing in puddles and talking to the other Americans before finally descending into the subway. We rode a couple of different trains, with Josiah Alyssa and Angela leading us around and then got onto an express train to complete the journey. We all sat on it waiting for departure time and talking quietly and then it blew up. Well, it didn’t exactly blew up, but one of the transformers on top sparked and the lights on the train went out. So did the air conditioning. Ugh. So we sat and waited for a bit until the lights came back on. We were all pretty tired at this point and were happy that we would finally be on our way. Then the lights flashed again and sparks flew and POP! The transformer went out again. This happened one more time a few minutes later and we finally all trooped across the platform to the opposite train, which would take us to the same place, but would take a little longer. As soon as we were all safely settled in, the train we had just left pulled out as smooth as you please. We watched it go with no little bit of resignation. We really wanted to be there already. Finally we pulled out, went a few more stops and then got off, walked another mile or so and filed into where we would be spending the next two nights.
I’m not going to say a whole lot about the place where we were on here. Everyone was able to shower and change and eat and do everything they needed to do, but we all have different stories and impressions of this very unusual (to us) place and I don’t want to steal anyone’s thunder. If you see one of us, though, be sure to ask us about the sauna and see what kind of reactions you get.
The next day our host families picked us up again and we were so happy to see them. We went as a big group to the Korean Folk Village, a kind of outdoor interactive museum that shows the history of the Korean culture and how they used to live. It was ginormous and amazing and we all loved it. We spent three hours there and it wasn’t nearly enough. The fact that it was raining like mad the entire time might have had something to do with it but I could have happily spent the entire day in this place. We only got to see about half of it even though we had split into smaller groups and were moving pretty quick. We got lots of pictures and were able to do a little bit of shopping before it was time to go, but I really really want to go back there someday and spend enough time there to do the place justice.
The reason we were in such a hurry was that our hosting dojang had planned a party for us for that evening. 60 team members plus our hosts crammed into this tiny little dojang, which had just blown a fuse and so had only about half lighting and no air conditioning in the main areas. It was probably about 85 degrees with close to 5 million percent humidity at this point, so it was a little uncomfortable. Ironically, Master Cha decided to present us with our seriously cool new sweat suits before it started and so of course we had to wear said sweat suits during the first half of the party, which was a ceremony complete with speeches and gift giving and medals handed out and lots and lots of pictures. Needless to say, we all gave new meaning to the term sweat suit by the time we were allowed to change. Then, we got to eat. And eat and eat. There was so much wonderful food, some provided by Master Cho’s very talented wife (rice and bulgogi and kimchee and veggie wraps and dok and other such goodness) and some provided by Costco. Yes, Costco. Rotisserie chicken and clam chowder and pizza and cookies and watermelon and bananas. We were very happy campers and munched and visited for quite a while before we headed back for a second night at the sauna.
This morning at 7:30 we left for the airport with two vans and a car crammed full of people and luggage – and I do mean crammed. The masters commented many times on how much stuff we’d brought with us. We got in, checked our stuff with only a couple of hang-ups and then got very sad when Master Kunkel told us she wouldn’t be coming home for another week. She has some business with Master Cha concerning Esther that is better taken care of while she’s in Korea instead of trying to do it from here. We were all disappointed, but of course we understand how important this is to her. Plus she can support Cindi and Angela, who are also staying behind, for the time she’s there. Daniel is staying with her as well, so we wished them all well with love and hugs and tears and then got on the plane and headed home. As I write this, we are on our last leg from San Francisco to Colorado Springs and we are so ready to be done. By our time, we’ve been traveling for over 24 hours, even though we’re gaining 15 hours of time. We left Korea at 12:40pm on Monday and we’re getting in at 8:30pm on Monday. The jet lag is going to be interesting.
Overall, this trip has been one of incredible highs and very challenging lows. We brought light to a dark place and the enemy did not like that. He tried very hard to dishearten and depress us. And he failed. Your prayer covering and the Light we have within us kept him at bay and we did what we came here to do. Korea is an amazing experience. We all look forward to sharing stories and memories with all of you when we get home. This is one trip none of us will forget. Thank you for your love and your prayers and well wishes. Without your support, this trip would not have been possible for any of us. And thank you for sticking with my very long – winded postings. It’s been so fun to put some of my experiences into words for you. I love you all and I’ll see you soon!
