Water and Its Magnetic Effect

Hey - has been a while since I blogged, which I blame on test making and report card writing, a monthly affair that calls on your most diplomatic phrases (When (insert bland child's name) puts in a satisfactory amount of effort, he/she can absorb all the necessary grammatical points. However....) and so forth. This is a canny code for 'Your child sucks, has the concentration levels of a recently deceased badger and can't tell his pencils from his body parts'. For the most part, though, I can say positive things about my children and mean them. I have come a long way.

I had the most enjoyable weekend which involved water, Chilean red wine, memories of the death of Kirsty MacColl and the shadowy advent of the beginning of my Tae-Kwon Do lessons. Firstly, on Friday night, Mike, Shaun, Annabelle, her boyfriend Song-Hyeon and I visited this fantastic bar in Hongdae which had an outdoor patio area and it's own little swimming pool! There were also sun loungers, swinging chairs (which induced a feeling of seasickness in Shaun a few glasses of wine later) and hammocks to create a gorgeous haven in the middle of Seoul. Many hammered Koreans climbed into the pool, fully clothed and the water came up to their inebriated waists, as they waved frantically to their reluctant fellow drinkers to join them. This was all well and good to watch until I, in all my wisdom, decided that it would be a great idea to get in myself. I dragged the unfortunate Mike with me and we splashed each other (and some irate drinkers nearby who one of our fellow partiers had to placate). It was immense fun.

We followed this up with a trip to the beach on Sunday. Koreans like to frequent the beach fully clothed (and I don't just mean shorts and a t-shirt - I'm talking jeans, wedge-heeled sandals, jackets, parasols, matching expressions of bewilderment) whilst we were wearing - gasp!- swimsuits. And large Baywatch style motorboats filled with overexcited women squealing (it's a boat! And it's going fast!) came decapitatingly close to the shore. Mike, Karen and I had an entertaining game of frisbee in the water where I learned that like most things in life, diving for the frisbee practically before it's even thrown leads to inevitable disappointment.

I would just like to inform you that Tae-Kwon Do is painful. Don't be fooled by the pansy 'we are going to get you to practice your running from wall-to-wall skills for six weeks' that the
black belted instructors in Queens were trying to propagate. Our instructor (who is hilarious in his mercilessness) already has us kicking each other after two days (although we are padded up Michelin Man style). We all have bruised feet, strained hamstrings and a fantastic outfit which make us all look like we're trying to emulate the female Karate Kid. It's hard to be this cool.