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Taekwondo World Championships

Ever Evolving Primate: Travel, photography, food, cooking, and just about anything else.: Taekwondo World Championships

Friday, May 6, 2011

Taekwondo World Championships

As I mentioned previously, Carolyn and I have been taking taekwondo classes for a couple of weeks. Last week the master invited us to go with him to an "international taekwondo tournament." We thought it would be an awesome Korea experience so we said OF COURSE! So yesterday, we went down to the gym, piled into the gym's van, and headed to Gyeongju, about an hour and a half east-southeast of Daegu.

Uh...yeah. We're not in Kansas anymore toto!

Great Britain putting the beatdown on Portugal



When we arrived I noticed something was amiss...there were tons of signs, an excellent display of kites marking the entrance, and people from all over the world. It was the freaking world championship! We got to watch a couple of matches that were really out of this world, for example the women's final between Korea and China. A politically charged ancient rivalry that resulted in two women beating each other up pretty well. The Korean won, by the way.

It was really neat to feel like we reconnected with the world a little bit, there were taekwondo competitors from every country I can think of, and it was neat to see some of the national pride on display.

Burial mound in background

The perfect gate.

Oh those beautiful Korean Mountains!

After the championship we went over to see some historical burial mounds that Gyeongju is famous for, and that was equally enjoyable. It was a beautiful spring day with families in a park flying kites, riding bikes, and walking among ancient burial sites that dated back to 935 BCE. Simply amazing.

It was very interesting being with our master for the day because although he speaks very very little English and we speak even less Korean, we managed to communicate somewhat. I think he wished we could communicate easier so he could tell us what was happening, but I made sure to tell him that even though we couldn't talk much it was such a cool opportunity for us to go to a world championship with our teacher that we would remember it forever...and we will.

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