Last weekend I had my first experience with Screen Golf. Jason decided it was time I see what all the hype is about. Screen Golf is a form of indoor golf where you can practice actually hitting golf balls, while digitally playing on any course in the world.
Screen Golf venues look like normal buildings, but inside house a number of private "golfing" rooms that are available for rental, on the hour. One person can rent a room, or a whole party. The place Jason and I went to wasn't very far from my apartment and has six rooms inside. The individual rooms are pretty big, about 20 x 20 feet with high ceilings. Inside was a long couch, free juice, water and candy. You pay 10,000 won each to use the room. You are supplied with a full bag of golf clubs, golf shoes and gloves. The couch faces a small stage that is outfitted with a small patch of green. That is where you stand to golf. You simply touch a button and the machine will load the ball into place for you with its mechanical arm. What do you aim at? Well the hole of course! The hole is projected in front of you on a huge screen! It kind of looks like playing golf on a video game, but you are using real balls. You swing and bam! the ball hits the screen in front of you, continuing to fly digitally where you left on physically. It's pretty cool. Like I said, you can choose from any number of golf courses, from San Diego to Jeju Island Korea. You can also choose difficultly level and 9 or 18 holes.
Now I've never been one much for golfing and it took me quite some time to really enjoy this sport, but in the end, I was getting the hang of it and just having fun. Its really difficult actually and although its accurate, its not THAT accurate, so things like putting are kind of difficult. But its fun to be wearing the real golf gear and changing clubs and such. Jason and I both did really bad and double bogeyed on every hole except one. I don't think Screen Golf is the game for me but Jason really enjoys it. Wish we could have taken Dad while he was here!
This past weekend as well as two weeks ago (before Screen Golf) I visited Seoul. The first time I went to meet my friend Kate who is Korean. I first met her when she was an exchange student at UCI for one year when I was the International House advisor. I hadn't met up with her the whole time I'd been in Korea, even though she lives in Seoul, because she'd been too busy. Finally we could meet! It was really nice to see her but exhausting! We visited the downtown of Seoul and the big palace, also Yonsei University where she went to school and a department store. We had a big lunch and then her mother made a traditional Korean dinner for us that night. I stayed at her house and got to meet both her mother and sister which was really nice! They are all really sweet, thoughtful people. I also got to meet their new puppy, a two month old brown poodle. Actually I got to to the store with them to pick out and take home the dog. The puppy store we went to was awful. It was small, dingy, smelly and packed full of little dogs in tiny cages. It made me extremely uncomfortable. The treatment of animals here in Korea is just shocking sometimes! The puppy was so small too, he should not have been away from his mother yet! But they got to take him home and I'm sure he's much better off with them than in the gross shop. We all agreed later it was a bad shop and the owner was pretty weird. Ah what can I, the foreigner do or say? So all in all the weekend was fun, but really tiring with so much running around! I got home on Sunday around 7pm with a huge headache and some left over bulgolgi in my bag (her mom had made me some to take home, so nice!)
Then yesterday Jason and I went to Seoul so I could look for a new dress. Our first stop was not a clothing store though, it was On the Border! We just had to get some Mexican Food. It was pretty good, nothing spectacular, but again a nice change of pace. I think my margarita had only a drop of tequila in it but it still tasted good. After our huge meal we ended up visiting a total of 4 different large department stores in four different areas of Seoul. None of them had anything remotely good or cute. I can firmly say that, at least at this moment, Korean clothing styles are not for me. Everything looked super conservative, super dull, super beige and fit for someone in their 60's who works at a mortgage office. Not a good dress shopping experience. We ended the day in Insadong, which was much more fun! We did some walking in the fresh spring air, looked at some cute Korean souvenir shops and some local art galleries. We also went in this bar that looked awesome from the outside, advertising Sam Adam's and Newcastle, only to enter a really dingy, dark place that did not serve Sam Adam's or Newcastle. We hastily ordered a Beck's each and choked half down before leaving. After Insadong we walked over to a bookstore I'd read about and spent some time browsing through the large English section. It felt very normal to be in a bookstore. Wonju has an English bookstore, but its filled only with children's books and "learn English" phrase books, so its not actually aimed at English speakers. We finally arrived back in Wonju about 11:00, again exhausted.
Today we are being surprisingly productive! Doing laundry, cleaning, going to the grocery store, cleaning out the frig, lesson planning... even though its gloomy again outside, perhaps some Spring cheer is slowly creeping into our bones!
Sunshine and warm weather, please arrive!!
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