The day started with a wander several blocks from the hostel to the Olympic stadium. I realised on my way back that I have now visit or seen a few Olympic stadiums including the 1980 Moscow, 1992 Barcelona (a couple of years ago), 2008 Beijing and now 1988 Seoul. I just need to see 1984 LA, 1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens and 2012 London ( Yes I know, ironic isn’t it ) and I will have seen all the stadiums from the Olympics in my life time. Just a thought, I am not sure I really need to fulfil that aim but I am at least halfway to the goal if I choose to make it one.
From the stadium I headed to a place I had seen on Trip Advisor, or some site like that. It was called Puppy Spoon and its a cafe which has performing dogs that come and sit with you. I thought it was worth a look. It wasn’t as it turns out. It had a funny atmosphere, there we about 20 dogs that did not look overly clean and well cared for, though they seemed happy enough and loved being stroked. I was charged 10,000won (£6) to enter and got a free drink (which was mostly ice). The place has potential to be so much more than it was. I did not see a demonstration because there needs be more than 10 people in an afternoon for them to bother doing it. That said I did enjoy petting the dogs for a while, and the dogs are much happier there than they would be on the street or in hotpot.
As I left I happened to stumble upon a sign informing everyone about a demonstration show at the World TaeKwonDo Headquarters. It was free and really impressive. At the end of the 45 minute show they invited ‘the foreigners’ on the stage to have a go at breaking boards. My board seemed to be held higher than the other ‘foreigners’ and when I kicked, and broke it, I ended up on my bottom which was rather embarrassing. Though I had no trouble when it came to punching the board in half.
All in all I had a great day and look forward to tomorrow when I go and stay with a Taoist Grandmaster at his meditation retreat for a few days.
