We finally got a later start time compared to the past few days. It was nice to sleep in a little more. We started our day off by taking the subway to take a Taekwondo class. We changed into the uniforms and started off by learning about what Taekwondo means. Tae means foot/kicking, kwon means fist, and do means discipline. We then moved on to some stretches before the class began.
The Taekwondo master then paired people up to do some exercises. We started off by a piece of fabric in our hand, and then dropping it and catching it with the other hand by punching it out. The second was putting bean bags on the top of our partner’s foot and balancing it off the ground. We then moved onto practicing our kicks. To end the class, everyone got to break a board. Overall, the experience was really fun, and I got to learn more about why Taekwondo was created.
We then went to get lunch around Seoul City Hall. Our group decided to get burgers from Bas Burgers. There was a screen at each table that you could order with and then pay with. It let you split the bill between different orders and allowed you to choose to pay with cash or card. It made it really easy to split the costs of the meal between the people in our group. After lunch we visited Seoul City Hall. My group’s guide, Lee, was very personable and shared a lot of information about the history of Seoul and the creation of the new city hall. When he took us on the tour it was really cool to see how far Korea, especially Seoul, has come in the past 40 years.
The four groups were surprised with a scavenger hunt to help us learn how to navigate the subway system here. Our group, group 4, was assigned to one of the farthest locations, the Seoul National Assembly building. Although the trip there was very long and a little stressful, the view we saw was well worth the long subway ride.
It was nice to be able to be more independent in the city and learn more about how to navigate the subway system. I also learned a lot from Lee about the huge transformation Seoul had undergone in such a short time. Overall, today was filled with lots of information about Seoul and its transportation system.