"...a good climbing mind..."

Hi everyone,

How's it going? I'm okay. Nothing too new to report from the week, but I'll share a few stories of what's been happening recently.

At the beginning of the month I found a bouldering gym in Daegu. There are supposedly a few in Daegu, but after walking back and forth past the actual gym for twenty minutes it was a miracle that I actually found this one. I didn't see the place at first, because it is in the basement of a building. The first time I went, I just wanted to find the place, see how much it cost, etc. The people were generally friendly and the place looked fine. I started going once a week- mainly because it takes about 30 minutes to get there with two bus transfers.

Now, I've never bouldered before (in a gym) and the experience was quite new. One of my fellow Fulbrighter's assured me that Korean climbers were friendly and they would help me. I quickly learned that this "help" comes in the form of the owner of the gym with a bamboo stick directing where I should place my "right hand, left hand, right foot, left foot," this is just a sampling of his limited English speaking ability. Of course, his English gets a lot better when he informs me, "No! No! No! Wrong, everything wrong!" He then proceeds to show me the correct way. This has happened every week since I began going to the gym. Now, I profess it is true, I'm not doing things the "correct" way, but I really am trying. I'm convinced that I only need more practice, not someone yelling at me in broken English that I'm doing everything wrong.

Now, last week was the icing on the cake when after a rather frustrating time he proceeded to tell me that I needed to lose weight to be better at bouldering and that I should jog to lose weight. Now, I've come to expect the blunt statements and assessments Korean's make about outward appearances, but like most American's, I'm not exactly thrilled when someone tells me I'm fat. I was pretty frustrated, but was more determined to show them that I could do it, despite being what they consider fat.

The chance to prove my ability came on Saturday when I went rock climbing with the man who owns the gym and several people that frequent the gym. I was invited on Thursday, but never received a call about going, so I craftily tracked down a phone number and made sure I was going on Sat. I was concerned that after Thursday they would try to ditch me on Sat!

I hadn't been rock climbing in almost nine months and it felt so good to be outside! Even if it was freezing outside! (Spring is slowly coming, one day it's gorgeous, the next it's rainy and cold.) We didn't go to a mountain to climb, rather a rock formation that has about a dozen or so routes. The place was pretty busy on Saturday, it was interesting to see so many people (mostly men, but some women) in all their fancy gear. I think most of the routes are pretty easy- mostly varying degrees of 10's.

I got to climb first and impressed them with my knot tying ability (thanks Matt) and a relatively good first climb. They were pretty impressed with my ability since I suck so much at the gym. Mr. Park's statement, "Rock climbing good! Bouldering bad!" After a few more runs over the course of a few hours (there were some other people climbing with us, we took turns) Mr. Park determined that I did not have a lot of power, but I had a good climbing mind- a reference to my stubbornness and refusal to give up. :) Overall, I was very happy that I went and had a good time. I can't wait for the next trip!

One more thing impressed some of the Koreans I went climbing with and that was my gear. I only say this, because, for the most part, Koreans tend to care about brand names and such. It's true and made me stress about what clothes I should wear climbing at the gym. I spent about a week searching for pants and a shirt I could wear climbing. However, this wasn't a thought when they saw the name of my shoes and harness!

I'll be traveling for the next two weekends and won't be able to make it into the gym because of my schedule, but I'll post more exciting stories later!

-me ^^