It's only been 9 weeks since the first day but after training normally 4 times a week and numerous group gatherings for dinner or drinking it seems like about 6 months. Every other Friday the club goes out after training and this Friday was one of those so after finishing training and after I took a few photo's with our teacher and others we went to a nearby restaurant.
What I didn't expect though was that they all knew my birthday was coming on Sunday and had prepared a surprise for me. After we sat down (on the floor) I was presented with a cake complete with candles and some really nice gifts from the group (a miniature bamboo sword, handmade fabric print of our komdo photos made by one of the members, and a very beautiful sword bag to keep our swords in which you can see in one of the photos!).
I really didn't expect anything like that, as since I had not been able to speak Korean that well my conversation with everyone had been limited to say the least, but they said that "we sweat together so we are like family now". I even had the Korean version of 'Happy birthday' sung to me. Before we left I had to say a quick speech which I certainly wouldn't have been able to do 3 months ago, but I just about managed to thank everyone for putting up with my poor Korean and for the gifts, and let everyone know I really enjoyed be
ing in the group.
No comments:
Post a Comment