A Fantastic Birthday Weekend!

What a fabulous first birthday in Korea!

The celebration weekend started with dessert and coffee with my co-teacher after school on Friday.  She took me to a great coffee shop that overlooks the Taewa River.   The porch is a great place to watch the sunset.  We didn’t stay long enough to see it, but I will definitely be checking it out in the near future.  They even provide blankets for chilly nights.

Sala from Tunisia and Emeril from Turkey
(fellow taekwondo students)

Next up was the yellow belt test for taekwondo.  I’m happy to say I passed with flying colors.  As part of the test, we had to do some kicks (front kick, stretch kick and roundhouse).  Then we had to perform the Poomsae Taegeuk 1 (an 18 move sequence with punches, kicks, and basic stances).  The last item for the test – breaking a board with a front kick.  And now I have my yellow belt…only 10 more to go until the coveted black belt.  After taekwondo, my classmates and I grabbed some drinks.  I finally got to try mokli (a rice milk alcoholic beverage flavored with fruits like strawberries and bananas).  YUM!

Shara and April are in my taekwondo class.
Sam, Shara, and April are fellow teachers
I met at orientation.

The big celebration was on Saturday, my actual birthday.  Eight of us met up downtown for dinner, drinks, and of course a little karaoke (i.e., norabang).  The group consisted of five people I met at orientation, one girl who teaches at the elementary school that feeds into my middle school, and a Korean I met through the pastor of my church.  We had a blast and stayed out singing until close to 3:00am.  The night ended with a bunch of Linkin Park songs…apparently three of us are fans…just took all night to find that out.  Even the cab ride back home was eventful.  The taxi driver was hysterical and kept putting songs on for us to belt out…starting with “It’s Raining Men” and ending with “Beat It.”

Rocking it out with karaoke AND a tambourine!

Getting ready for the next song.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend!  I’m so glad I’ve found such good friends to celebrate with.  Who knows how many more birthdays I’ll be celebrating in Korea…or other parts of the world…