Golf

In Korea, there are lots of places you can go to rent out a private room for a couple of hours for entertainment purposes. And I, for once in my life, don't mean that in a strictly "That's what she said" kind of way...

Prior to this weekend, I knew of DVD bongs and Norabongs. DVD bongs are where you rent out a little room with a huge couch and pick out a dvd to watch in your little room. Almost like a private movie theater, except with more snuggle-friendly chairs. I think last time I went, we crammed 9 of us into a room to watch Iron Man... Good times! Norabongs, on the other hand, are private karaoke rooms where you can go to sing karaoke with your friends without a mess of bar patrons you don't know hearing you. Fantastic for people who are either a) shy about their own singing voice, or b) have no desire to hear drunk people butchering Don't Stop Believing over and over and over (and over) again.

However, this weekend I discovered another option for non-sketch private room entertainment -- Virtual golf.

To begin with, I've never played golf before in my life. I've played putt putt a bazillion times, but even on my best days I'm only decent. We decided to try virtual golf, however, when we found ourselves stuck on a rainy day on the opposite side of Seoul with not a whole lot to do. And it was a blast!

We spent the first half hour trying to teach me how to swing a golf club correctly, you know, learning the correct form and all that...


Yes, I'd obviously never even held a real golf club before...


My golf stance


My swing, and...


follow through.

We discovered a couple very important things throughout the game.
1. The machine measures your hit somehow using light, so it you maybe happen to take a picture with a flash when you should be swinging, you can trick the machine into thinking you just swung (albeit, really poorly), even though you didn't. We maybe spent a good ten minutes at one point playing around with this discovery.
2. When the machine tells you exactly which club to use, you should probably follow its advice...
3. I can hit a ball 84 meters! I guess according to a machine where the ball goes all of 15 feet before slamming into a wall.

Even though we stopped trying at hole 15, neither of us having gotten a single hole, it was such a fun time, and I'm really looking forward to playing a real game of golf someday, probably when I'm back in the states.

Golf...

Even though it was another really fun weekend, it definitely had its sad undertones. Our whole reason for being up in Seoul was for Kevin, Liz, and Chris's going away weekend. It's strange in Korea how ephemeral friend groups are (For those of you studying for the GRE, you're welcome). Almost everyone comes out here with the intention of staying in Korea for a year, maybe two tops, and then moving back home to tackle finding a REAL job, going back to grad school, and facing responsibility again. I met Kevin, Liz, and Chris near the end of their contracts and I'm still very much at the beginning of mine, so I got to know them for all of two months before they left. If I stay for a second year, which I'm increasingly tempted to do, almost every single foreigner I've met out here so far will have moved back home and left me here. And by the time I do end up leaving, I'm sure I'll be leaving a new, yet-to-be-met group of friends as well. It's the nature of living in Korea, as soon as you've met people, they leave. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does keep you on your toes and always meeting new people. Regardless, it was a kind of sad weekend, and I hope I have the chance to visit them all again in the States and England :)

I guess such is life. Also, if anyone has any advice about my golf swing, please please let me know!

- Christine -