The Skate Park

As we were walking towards downtown Changwon in South Korea we found a skate park so we went to check it out. A few things that we found interesting was that no one had a skate board but everyone was on roller blades (makes me wish I brought mine). There was a dozen kids skating around on the Sunday afternoon and I think they were all between the ages of 7-12. There was not one teenager which made me wonder where they all were and then I realized that I rarely see anyone between the ages of 13-23 and I was told that it is because they are all in school. The saying is if you get more than 4 hours sleep a night you aren't studying hard enough.

As we approached the skate park everyone stopped and looked at us in amazement which happens a lot in South Korea, if I walk past 10 Koreans during a stroll I will hear 5 "hello, how are you"s as they marvel at the opportunity to talk with an English speaking Westerner. Angèle feels like we part of a freak show sometimes.

Back to the skate park, I had my camera out and I signaled to everyone that I wanted to take some action shots of them and the crowd went wild. Everyone started yelling with excitement hoping they would impress me with their "mad skillz." They each took their turn rolling around and taking 6'' jumps off some ramps and I snapped away. They all gathered around me to see their picture and one kid didn't have one. Well, imagine the sadness, I sent him off to do his thing and he got the whole group excited with what he said he would do and I was a little worried that he was going to do something too dangerous. I placed myself where I thought he was going and he zoomed right by me going 100 miles per hour and I got my best shot of the day but it wasn't what I was supposed to get since he took a high jump of about 1' high off the top ramp. So, I had to reposition myself and he had to do it again and this last picture is what he did. He got to look at his picture and everyone was happy so we said our good byes and went on our way.

As we left Angèle asked me, "Did you notice there wasn't any graffiti"? Not one spray of graffiti could be found anywhere in that skate park. Just goes to show you how innocent and wholesome their way of having fun is.