yeong gwang

 Monday. Took the 4 hour bus ride to Kwang gju and from there one hour bus ride to Yeong gwang. Everything went surprisingly smooth even though no one here speaks much English. Got help from several local people to find the drum school and was given a warm welcome by the people training there. Master  Choi Yeoung had not seen the emails we had written to him because he has been very busy. That's how life is when you are a....kulturskatt! (Cultural treasure?) Anywho, yep! That's what he is actually. Because he is a master in old traditional korean music/ drums and sword (called gyong dang) His wife just had a baby and is at the hospital in Seoul. Cecilie has been here twice before and knows them both so master Choi Yong invited us to stay at his apartment.

Very nice of him. He and Eun Mee lives in an aparment building just a few minutes walk from the drum school. We got our own room where we have to sleep on the floor like every other Korean man and woman. One blanket underneeth us and one over. Not too bad actually, the mattresses at the hostel in Beijing were much harder! But the heating was quite different... I think Choi Yong had turned up the heat (in the floor) and I don't know if he meant it to stay at 70 degrees C or if he just forgot to turne it down again but we both agree that it got PRETTY hot that night. Under the "mattress" you coul barely touch the floor, it was so hot and everything laying on the floor that could melt, melted... :) Next day we had to try and fix it ourselves since C Y was nowhere to be found. Found a panel with some buttons and turned what we thought was the right button from 70 degrees to 40. Didn't wake up in a pool of sweat the next morning so we did good:)

We went there around 8pm but he had to go back to teach the class and didn't return until late, after we had gone to bed and he left early the next morning. Haven't really seen him since then :) a very busy man, but he made sure we felt like home at his apartment and showed us where everything is and also had a student take care of us the first day. We went on a picknik and to a temple. It was located in a beautiful national park but the temple area was under reconstruction so.... We are going to a much nicer one later: golgulsa.

Later that evening, Yeoung Hee, another student, drove us to Baeksu beach to see the sunset.

Communication is limited because they only know a few English words. You get kind of exhausted after a while, trying to translate the mix of korean and Englishlike words but they really try the best they can and we appreciate everything they do for us.

We came here hoping to learn some drumming and Gyong dang (sword) but don't know if they caught on to that. We played a little with the drums ourselves and Cecilie taught Anette the little she could. (and was very impressed with how quick Anette learned) But the process was hysterical and we had many laughs:)

We also watched a gyong dang class and was taught a few moves. Very much fun! And we're eager to learn more. Hope we can do it again:)

 

On Friday we get on the bus headed for the east coast and kyong gju. ready for temple life and martial arts!