Well, I'm excited.
I'm excited because I'm going to get to start a new casino rueda class at one of the nicest, most popular pubs and social hang-outs in S.Korea...Waygook Cook in Gumi.
Yes, it's a fact. I'll be doing my first class there May 18, a Tuesday, at 9:30 p.m. That'll give all the regular customers time to rest a bit, get cleaned up and get down to Waegook Cook feeling refreshed and ready for 90 minutes of the funnest dance since the 'hokey-pokey'.
Derrick Smith and his lovely Korean wife of 6 years "Sugi" both are active owners and managers of Waegook Cook and Derrick tells me that in addition to their famous menu they also have a broad spectrum of social activities there his establishment. Derrick is from S.Africa.
These classes will be totally free but they won't be casual. I want to keep the pace fast and focused. We'll start off learning enough basics of course but I think I'll be able to have us doing a real rueda by the time the class is over. I'll try to lay the sufficient amount of framework in that first lesson so that we can add other moves and patterns to it as the weeks go by.
What we'll be learning, 'casino rueda', is actually the way that they've been learning salsa in Cuba for years. What makes casino rueda really unique is that it's actually two dances in one....i.e. you can dance 'casino style' with just one partner or in a group of over 100 couples. That 'group' aspect of casino rueda puts a social aspect back into casino rueda that often is missing from salsa in the average salsa club.
I'll be bringing lots of good Cuban style salsa music for us to dance to and hopefully lots of people will want to stay after the class to dance for a while longer.
Waegook Cook is very conveniently located for anybody who lives in metro Gumi. You can look on their website to figure out how to get there. Email them at: thewaegookcook@yahoo.com or call them at 011-546-3775
Also I must mention the food. The item I had was absolutely stellar... Schnitzel. It's kind hard to describe..... kinda like a chicken-fried steak but I think it might have actually been some kind of pork cutlet.
The difference was the incredible sauce they put on it. Us U.S. types over here in Korea know how hard it is to find good sauces of any kind in Korea. Lemme tell ya......this thing was absolutely delicious. Derrick tells me I need to try the steaks too so....I guess that's next.
That's about it.......Derrick is going to put this on his Events page on his Facebook site and I'll have administrator privileges so I can keep it updated. I'll be putting as much stuff there as I can but I plan to also resurrect my KoreaCarruseles blog and start adding current info to it from both this class and also the casino rueda class I attend in Daegu on Saturday nights at Babalu.
I'm thinking about starting a Meetup group for this too but I haven't decided for sure. It might be a bit of 'overkill' ....... although I do like some of the Meetup functionality.
I hope to see lots of new friends there at Waegook Cook. It's OK if you're a salsa beginner. If you want to learn.....I can teach you. And this is by far the most fun way to learn to salsa....it's the most fun you can have with your friends in a circle!
