WEDNESDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER 2012
Day #3
To start off our day, we went for a tour at Kukkiwon, the Headquarters of Taekwondo, to learn more in depth about Taekwondo. As a Taekwondo member, it is important to know about the history of Taekwondo as it will help us to appreciate this form of martial art more. In the museum, I found out that there are 153 countries that are affiliated to the World Taekwondo Federation and there are a total of 13 championship games. The Kukkiwon stadium has been at its present site for almost 40 years. We also had a golden opportunity to be able to watch a 8/9-don grading exam that was held in the enormous stadium in Kukkiwon. It was really an eye-opener! We also took the chance to take photos with the judges, referees and the Taekwondo Masters. We met the journalist for the Kukkiwon Taekwondo Newsletter at the stadium. He took a snap shot of our group and informed us that our group photo would be published in the next edition of the newsletter. We were elated! We will be famous now! Overall, we learned a lot about Taekwondo from Kukkiwon and enjoyed watching the grading exam.
Next, we visited the Namsan Tower, commonly known as the Seoul N Tower. It is Seoul’s most famous observatory deck. When we reached the destination, we had to hike up a hill to reach the tower as vehicles are prohibited to enter. Our coach, Sir, gave the boys a challenge, that is to run up the hill as fast as they could and see who is the winner. Haha, in the end, it was Hanis and Shi Cong sharing the first spot! When we reached the Namsan Tower, we were ushered to the elevator that led us up to the observatory deck. The elevator has an interesting name. It is called the ‘Shocking Elevator’. Why is it named this? Well, we really had a shock when we went into the elevator. They had a screen right above our heads. It showed us a video where we were brought into ‘space’ and it was such fun watching it that we didn’t realize that we had reached the deck within the few seconds!. Looking down from the observatory deck, everything on the ground looked so small! We even found a telescope saying that we could see Singapore from there. After admiring the beautiful scenery of South Korea, we went down to the souvenir shop. My friends and I bought a set of items comprising of a pen, two hearts and a lock. We wrote down our well - wishes and locked it up on the deck, together with all other locks written by many people. Even though these are normally what couples do, we did it together to remember our time in Korea together.
The “Spirit of Taekwondo” performance was performed by the black belt masters from Kukkiwon and we found out that they are only University students. It was a spectacular show. They were very synchronized and their punches and kicks were very powerful and swift. It kept everyone amazed and wanted to see more. During one part of the performance, one of the performers did a 540 - degree horse kick. His kick was so powerful that the piece of plank flew from the stage to our friend, Ray and he was seated about 50 metres away from the stage! Wow! The performance was a moral boost and inspiration for us, Team Eagles.
After that, we had Taekwondo training at the same place conducted by the teacher, Master Park, who is from Kukkiwon Sabum. It is a totally different experience as we had people from other countries joining in the class. Master Park taught us Taekwondo using a different technique. His lesson was fun and interesting as he taught us a few combinations of kicks and punches. He also educated us on values that we can learn through the hard training. He taught us us about “No sweat, no pain”. It meant that he respects every individual who comes to learn from him, and in return, we have to respect him by giving our best in our training. Last but not least, we received a certificate from Kukkiwon and the President of Kukkiwon even signed on it. We truly enjoyed the training very much!
Nanta ‘Cookin’ Show
We ended the day with a hilarious musical. We were all excited about the performance because we heard good remarks about it. It definitely didn’t disappoint us. We had such a great laugh and it ended our day with a big bang! The musical is about a group of chefs who were tasked to prepare a wedding banquet. There was one moment when the chef tried to interact with the audience. He divided them into two groups. He did it in a very funny way and he made the audience burst into lots of laughter. It was one of the best shows that we have ever watched!
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