A WHITE NEW YEAR

The new years holiday is kicking off here in South Korea and everything is covered in snow. I wish I had a video camera, even an HD video camera to capture the grandeur of the snowfall I saw, especially while driving at night. Even many big movies don't have images that can compare.

I am now using all web based tools so that I can more easily keep things updated on this site as the adventure continues. I spent most of yesterday morning working on that transition. I also spent a lot of time copying all the files I thought I might want to keep from my Macbook to an external USB drive for use when I get another computer later. The plan is to later get an iMac Extreme.

After spending over 4 hours in the morning working on getting my sites and mails transitioned over to web based tools, Victor apparently got word from an old friend who wanted to train with us. Saturday was supposed to be an off day, but I guess we were going to make an exception to accommodate this friend. 

Since we also needed to get food for Jerry, Sally, Sunbin and their cousin who magically appeared out of nowhere that morning, the plan was to go to their mothers restaurant first and pick up food, drop them off and then go to meet Victor's friend for an afternoon workout. Sally let me take the camera for this trip, so I got some pictures of the snow covered land.

We went to the restaurant where their mother and grandmother were working. We picked up the necessary food and were back on our way After we dropped the kids off at home, me and victor went to the home of his old bodybuilding buddy Yongsun who was on leave from military service. He had an awesome flat HDTV in his apartment where he stayed with his family. We talked a bit about bodybuilding, K1 fighting and the Philippines, and then ate some very delicious steak before heading off to the gym. It snowed while we were inside and Victor's car was covered in it. Still we made our way out and headed to the usual training spot. The problem was, when we got there, it was closed, and the key was not in the normal hidden spot Victor normally pulled it from. I found that Victor had a falling out with the owner some time ago and when word got around that Victor was back and training there, he may have found a new location for the key. Either way, we needed to find a new place to train. We drove around while Yongsun made calls to find a place. Eventually Victor remembered a place called, not surprisingly, Arnold's Gym where we ended up.

Okay, this isn't really it. That's a joke Victor played on us when we got there. The gym was actually quite nice inside, better than the place we were training at all week. It had more advanced and up to date machines, and still had a nice assortment of free weights and cardio machines.

The three of us worked out hard for at least three hours and the owner seemed to have forgotten to turn on the heat in the place. I felt like my feet were going to freeze off. Still we had a good work out and all was well. When we walked outside, the snowfall was amazing. Victor had previously parked in someone else's space, we don't know who, so we joked about his car possibly being towed. When we walked towards it, there was a truck parked in front of it and it actually looked for a moment like it was gone. It was so cold we were sure to die out there with no transportation.

Luckily it was there and we were soon back on the road. We dropped off Yongsun and went back to the house, but nobody was there. With that we decided to go to Victor's mother's restaurant where we usually eat after training. Victor's father was there. He is also a bodybuilder and in amazing shape. We ate some fish, some other meat and a bit of kim chi before calling it a night. Victor's parents drank wine. After that we returned to the house and the family was right behind us. Everyone was back home, with cakes and other party food for the holiday. Of course, since I am training, I could not partake and so I went to bed.