The start of school here marks my return to studying as a student, even though its summer break! Everyday, I take 3 hrs of basic Korean in the morning and 3 hours of another humanities mod called art, vission and brain. Despite it being summer school, the pace of these lessons are quite intense! But to me, this challenge is worth it because i find these mods interesting. We have some homework and tests so that’s not that nice but then they are covering one terms worth of academic credits in 1 month so probably expected.
The weekend was spent on a Korean culture fieldtrip organised by KAIST to jeonju. We travelled in a chartered bus down to the Wanju municipal where we first we exposed to traditional Korean paper making. We even got to wrap our own wooden accessory box and make a piece of paper from the bark of the Mulberry tree.
Afterwards, we got a walkabout history lesson on the beautiful historic town of jeonju. Even better, we got to appreciate the town in traditional Korean garments! The last item for the day was DIY bimbimbap making for dinner. I am quite proud to proclaim that without any background in cooking, I could still create a delicious bimbimbap, if I do say so myself, through the spirit of collaboration! Truly the spirit of SUTD in practice hahah #SUTDsg.
One night in jeonju later, we headed back to the mountains to receive bona-fide taekwando training at taekwandowon. In the morning, a tour of the taekwando museum to understand the roots and values of taekwando. Also, a hot blooded performance by the students there to showcase the true strength of taekwando! An amazing performance at that! In the afternoon, we went for taekwando camp to learn some cool basic taekwando. It was here we that through rigorous training and determination, I achieved my black belt! I am in fact quite inspired to continue my taekwando training.
The week was happening but that’s the spirit of adventure. Work hard and play hard. Korea is blowing me away!
