New Year's Resolution...blog more

"I'm Buff, and I'm the stuff"-Buff Bagwell

Seoul Lantern Festival 

Quick pose to show proper form to the kids

Christmas and New Years 

I joined a gym about two months ago.  I'm really trying to gain that weight back, but it's coming along really slowly.  My students, especially the females, are getting tired of me complaining about how I can't gain weight.  Notice in the top left picture all the Korean gym members are on the treadmills.  Muscles are not considered attractive here, so you rarely see people working with heavy weights.

The second set of pictures is from the Seoul Lantern Festival.  It was held during late fall.  They have themes each year, and this year was Korea.  They are paper lanterns constructed with fine detail, representing people or places, etc. from Korea's past and present.

Right before the new years I had a long weekend and a Korean ajumma (lady or housewife), Nira, invited me to go skiing with her and her son.  She has also volunteered to help teach me some Korean language on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  She has become like my "Korean mom" or older sister if she asks.  I hadn't skied in over 10 years, but picked it up like it had only been 10 days.  I guess it's that natural Murphy athleticism, though I think I'm the only family member to possess this gift.  Next time I go out I'll try to snowboard, but Nira and her son talked me out of it this time.

The last set of pictures is just some quick shots of Christmas and New Years.  Neither are very big holidays in Korea, so the season passed by rather uneventfully.  Christmas here is a time to celebrate with friends, and New Years eve and day are usually spent with family.  I went to a New Years Eve celebration in the Seoul equivalent of Times Square.  There were lots of people, but not worth going back to.  There are also two videos from New Years Eve: the first is of the crowd right after the countdown, and the second is of a group of traditional Korean drummers.