Back from the demo

I'm back from my trip to Chungju. It was both fun and interesting, and we did several cool things over the two days. Some of the highlights included learning to play the Korean hourglass drum (which I sucked at, but it was fun) and listening to traditional music and watching b-boys (breakdancing). I have to say I was quite impressed by the b-boys. They were incredibly agile: one of their more impressive feats was 1 man standing on his hand. On one hand. And then, going down a flight of stairs while hopping on one hand, feet in the air. Wow!!

We also watched an impressive teaching-demo class, ate in several nice restaurants, and visited a spa (well, my friend and I did). We also learned about and practiced a Korean traditional martial art (which I also sucked at, although I did look very handsome in the robe). My partner put me on the ground several times.

We stayed in an old but serviceable condo. I traded partners to get my friend Steve as my room-mate, so that was fun. Many people got very drunk that night, and several of them were rather hungover the next day. (Although Steve and I were not among them.)

While the overnight trip was fun, I personally thought it was over-scheduled. There was a little too much packed into the two days, and little time to catch your breath. It was on the bus, go somewhere, do it, then back on the bus for the next thing. Repeat. The last thing we did was the the Korean-instrument workshop, which was interesting and all, but we were all tuckered out by that point.

The other thing that bothered me was the condo. We got there, no problem. It was in Suanbo, which is a famous area for spas. There was a beautiful lit-up pavilion on the mountainside that I made plans to walk up to. And then.... we were told we could not go out of the condo. If we left, or even walked down the street to the the little supermarket, we had to take a Korean staff--person with us. I asked about it, and we were told it was for our own good, that there were men lurking about who would steal our money.

Perhaps there was a legal reason for it. Perhaps there was a credible threat. Perhaps they were worried about the hard-drinkers in our crowd. Perhaps they simply didn't want to worry about us. I don't know, and it was explained in the most vague terms. But I, personally, felt that we were being treated like children.

Other than those two things, it was a good experience that I enjoyed. We're doing it again next November, and I look forward to it.