After coming home from the 3 hour baseball game yesterday, I was extremely exhausted. Luckily, our day didn’t start as early as the previous one. Today was also an exciting class because for most of us it was going to be our first martial arts class ever, precisely Taekwondo. When we arrived the Tae class, we took off our shoes and wore white garments which served as our uniforms of the day. Our first exercise began with teaching respect for each other and for our partners during the lesson. The instructor said, Taekwondo is a respectful martial arts so at the beginning and end of each session , we had to bow to our partners. In his words, ” We start with respect and end with respect”.
The next step of the class was learning how to move our fists. We carried out a series of relaxing and contracting exercises where the instructor told us that the best technique wasn’t simply about throwing one hard punch, but how much we relax and contract our arms so that we do not get too tired easily. After that we did a balance lesson where we had manage to keep our feet at a certain height and position. Essentially Tae-Kwon-Do means ; feet, hands and mind , which we all applied in every exercise. By the end of the class, our instructor explained the importance of Taekwondo to the Korean society especially in the late 50s after the Korean war.
After the Tae class, we headed to the Seoul city hall, where saw what the slogan of the year which is “Seoul my soul”. This slogan is centered around citizens where collective citizenship creates a better Seoul. As we walked around city hall, on each floor I was amazed by the architecture and design. Not only was it unique, but it was very both aesthetic and it represented something related to the Korean society and history. When we got to the room displaying the growth of Seoul over the years, I was in awe. I could clearly see what Seoul looked like in the late 50s and what it looked like today, was a clear proof of the hardworking nature of Koreans. It showed how patriotic the Korean population is, and how committed they are to making their country great. One thing I noticed with the city hall was its large investment in solar energy. The top of the new city hall had several solar panels on the roof and the entire structure was made of glass, almost like a green house, to let light in for the growth of its plants. From the top of the city hall, we could see the blue house, the Namsan tower, and Bugksan mountain.
After our tour of city hall, Dr Yun prepared a scavenger hunt activity for us, where each group leader had to pick an in image of a well known monument and lead their group members to it, take a picture at the monument and send it on the Whatsapp group chat. The aim of this game was to teach us how to navigate the Seoul subway system and to test our team work skills. The area my team and I had to visit was the Dongdaemun dome, which had several exhibits of artwork. It also had a Hello Kitty exhibit which I went to see and I got some merch. After that we returned to the Hotel, and gathered for a common meal.