Be Fearless, Travel Solo

Some more Konglish in my travels- Classic! They even feel sorry for you! How does any english speaker not laugh when this is posted outside a store? So you peope need to work out, it gud for health, and moss of all, will helf your life. This was printed on a swim suit, and yes, I bought it. Ahhhh japanESS food!! I love darbecue! I like it more on Evien Stone! For a transparent complexion. I think its for vampires.  Men Vampires. A Y-Shit. That must be painful

Arirang Taekwondo- While teaching in Seoul, my Korean immersion has extended to studing Marital Arts- Korean Taekwondo, with Round house kicks, wooden board breaking and the 'giant leap frog' excercise. I have hung up the track spikes and pole vault poles and traded them in for Taekwondo belts. The track skills have carried over well in martial arts! About 3 times a week I take an hour long subway ride to the north side of Seoul in a neighborhood called Samgakji.  The Dojang, (no, Dojo is Japanese) is apart of the Korean War Memorial Museum, and the Marital Arts center itself is one large, round room, with a sparring ring in the middle, a platform in the front of the room for demostrations and two huge wooden statues in the front that boarder a Korean flag. The class is made up of eqully Koreans and forigners, and given mostly in English. Every class begins with a low bow on the hands and knees towards the front of the room, which represents respec...

After staring at the beautiful throne room, I made my way to an opening on the side of the courtyard walls and entered into a smaller grouping of one-story, ornately decorated buildings. This was the crown prince's residence. What struck me at first was new it looked and also how detailed every inch of the walls, corners and roofs were. The buildings that were standing there were recreated in 1999 after they were leveled during the Japanese colonial rule half a century before that. In fact many of the structures inside the palace walls were new recreations, but were built in nearly exact replicas of the originals, right down to the same direction the door where facing and the same dragon pictures that were on the ends of every singled roof. I had picked a good day to explore this bit of history; it was the first day of our Chusak break, or the Korean Thanksgiving, and hardly anyone was there. I also came here alone. When I entered the prince's corridors, there was not a s...