Hangul

On Saturday afternoon Dan and I were exploring downtown Won-ju, and a small calligraphy shop caught my eye (actually, we had passed by it on the bus several times, so I was already interested in taking a look around). The store was full of traditional calligraphy brushes, paper, ink, stamps and every other kind of art supply you could think of. I decided then that I wanted to try to learn hangul through calligraphy. Although the proprietor didn't know very much English, and I know even less Korean, she managed to show and teach me a lot about getting started in calligraphy. She outfitted me with ink, a brush, an ink-well, paper, a felt mat to go underneath the paper, as well as a paper weight to keep the paper smooth while I write.
Today I had my first self-directed hangul lesson: I copied all of the Korean characters, and then wrote four words: hong ch'a (tea) kam (persimmon) bap (rice) and sup'a (soup). Right now my goal is to learn Korean well enough to put it on my CV... we'll see how it goes!