BAMF of the 2nd degree?

It's a little strange that I haven't had any Hapkido posts on here lately.  Things have been a little quiet since Chris injured his foot and Master Sim had his little baby girl.  This week was our first week back after a two week break so that the boy could mend his footsie.

I can't tell you enough how much I love Hapkido.  Never in my life did I ever really want to learn a martial art, but when Chris said he wanted to practice it I decided that he couldn't be the only one in the relationship with a black belt. 

I enjoy Hapkido for so many reasons.  I feel like I'd be able to put up a strong fight in any compromising situation.  If I happened to have my katana with me I'd be in even better luck.  I also like it because it's a pretty intense physical workout.  The first few weeks were rough.  My legs, wrists, arms, joints, every possible muscle in my body hurt.  Bad.  It's gotten better, but even as I type I have to rest my arms in a certain position or else I'll get a sharp pain in my arms.  It hurts so good.

Today we got a big surprise when Master Sim asked the boy and I if we wanted to test for our 2nd degree black belts before we left Korea.  Uh, is Anderson Cooper stunningly handsome?  Silly question.  We enthusiastically said yes and asked when the next test is.  His response?  "Oh.. next test.. next month".  As in, we'll be testing for our 2nd degree black belts in less than 30 days.

Whose got two thumbs and will be working her ace off?

This girl.

 Oh and look.  We even bought Ares his very own Hapkido uniform and katana.

You can stop judging now.   

Our Sunday. In Pictures.

My weekend in pictures.

Ahhh yes.  Very exciting, non?  This was the view that I've had for the past two days as I'm trying my hardest to recover from a sickness of death.  It's quite the bummer since we had awesome weekend plans.  It was our good friend Paul's birthday celebration and we had booked rooms at a traditional Korean house for the weekend.  I had been feeling pretty bad all week but thought that I was finally getting better.  I even woke up on Saturday and got dressed in my new Christmas "jumper" (i.e. "sweater" to us Americans).  We got all the way down to the bus station before I realized that it just wasn't going to happen.  I need to rest and recuperate before our Christmas getaway and I would've been the grumpy grape that brought everyone else down.  Bah humbug.

Not wanting to miss out entirely, I had a Polaroid picture taken of myself so that Chris could carry it around with him while he went off without me. 

I pretty much spent the entire weekend plopped on the couch watching reruns of America's Next Top Model, NCIS, and Harry Potter.  woop woop.  The only real upside to my weekend was that Ares kitten was quite the sweetheart.  He stayed by my side all weekend and slept in my pile of tissues.  Bless his little kitten heart. 

Chris was very good about keeping me updated and making sure I was alright.  He was also kind enough to take plenty of pictures and video so I could re-live the adventure with him.

The birthday boy

The crew

A puddle of pups!

Jindo pups!

Korea's traditional dogs, Jindo dogs.

Ducky Boats

The boy got some awesome footage of the house that they stayed in.  He'll hopefully have the video up tonight, but seeing as The Last Samurai just came on TV, it might take a little longer.  Hope everyone else had a wonderful weekend!

Our Sunday In Pictures

To continue our weekend of rest and relaxation, we decided to keep our Sunday low key and quiet.  We actually got a lot accomplished.  We slept in, got coffee, took the motorcycle for a spin, cleaned our apartment, tackled a disasterously high pile of dishes, took Ares for a walk, made dinner, and uploaded all of the footage we've taken over the past few weeks.  Chris will hopefully have a new video up in a few short days.  Until then, our Sunday... in pictures. 




Turns out that Starbucks is exorbitantly priced in all countries.



Peppermint Mocha?  It must be Christmas time!

Tous les Jours in finally open in Yugang!

Home sweet home!

A pretty relaxing Sunday indeed.

Ratings Booster?

It boggles my mind that a fluffy cat repeatedly jumping out of a cardboard box can have a million views on facebook while our videos render somewhere around...100. The solution? Teach Ares to do something mundane and then film it.

Our objective: teach Ares to use chopsticks. He is Korean made afterall.

Love his face in the first one. So determined. I think he's starting to get the hang of it... baby steps.