What I learned about Korea: Unlike Christmas, which is a romantic holiday, New Years is a family holiday in Korea. In fact, all of the Korean bars close from 12 – 2 AM so that people can be with their family. Another interesting thing I had already known but should mention is that in Korea the entire country ages on New Years. I’m now 23 despite being 21 in the US.

Picture of the Week:

New Years dinner with Hubo Lab. Tuna Salad, Gourmet Pizza, and Delmonico Steaks!

Status Report:

Hubo: I have started documentation with the hip and I have a completed rough draft. Alex and I have been mapping out how we want to structure the manual as well as supplementary information that we should provide.

Lego Nxt: The kit has arrive late this week, I will begin working with using the code I wrote in python for openRave on the NXT first by NXT_Python and secondly by ROS.

What I learned about myself: This past week has been filled with a lot of drinking and celebration. I have learned that both my mind and body feel extremely out of sync without structure and achievement. I haven’t been able to get to the gym lately and  have been eating poorly. I can greatly feel the effects and plan to correct this ASAP.

Koreans I met: This week I met a girl named 수지 while out at a bar one weekend. She spoke very very little english,  but my one friend Andy from the US was pretty good at translating. We went out that night with her and her friend to have dinner and go dancing. A language barrier doesn’t stop people from making new friends.