An outing to Gumi City

Michael left for Seoul early on Saturday because of a family emergency. I stayed behind and met up with Michael’s mother’s friend’s son, Seoung, and his friend. Seoung and his friend both go to Daegu University and are studying Computer Science. I asked them what they did for fun on the weekend: “drink and play computer games”.

We got into Seoung's car and after talking about things to do, headed into Gumi City towards Gumi's one ice-skating rink. The ice was quite rough and the skates were sharpened unevenly…I ended up cutting up my elbow on the ice, but then paid 2000 won (1000 won approximately equals 1 dollar) extra for a pair of speed-skates. I fared much better on the speed skates. After skating we went back into the heart of the city to play billiards. There were two floors –one with regular pocket pool and one with pocket-less tables on which you play a game called Three Cushions. It was interesting to see that only girls were playing pocket pool while the Three Cushion pool floor was entirely occupied by boys. I asked about this and they told me it was because Three Cushions pool is much harder. We played a few rounds and left to eat lunch at a Japanese restaurant.

The two boys thought that Gumi was small and boring, but to me it was as urban as any medium-sized city in the US.