Haven't written in awhile. Here's a couple quick updates:
Had sports day with our kinde kids and their parents a couple Sundays back. One of the most fun days I've had probably. We didn't really have to do anything but show up. There was a company that organized all the games and such. Games ranged from running races, to tug-of-war, to blowing up balloons, to other outlandish games. Let me tell you, these parents were not in it for the fun. They were there to win.
We started out with a race. Us teachers went first, so we were standing at the finish line when it was time for all the moms to go. Two wipe outs. One fairly epic one. This lady was running, running, running her little heart out. When it got to the finish line it was a tight race. She basically sorta accidentally dove for the finish line. Flat on the belly, arms out, face hitting dirt and bouncing a couple times. I wish there was a picture of our faces as we watched this, in what seemed like slow motion. We tried to keep our laughter in for a little, and I think we did pretty well, but soon it was just too much work and we laughed pretty much the rest of the day thinking about that fall. I think the woman was fine. She disappeared for the rest of the games until it came to prize time, and she won the runner-up prize of a medium bag of rice. Needless to say it was an awesome day, topped off with a yummy sam gyeop sal dinner with copious amounts of makali (rice wine). I'm fairly certain fun was had by all.
Here's a pic of one of the many games we played:
We had a long weekend for Buddha's Birthday last weekend. Emily, Chanelle, and I decided to take another Adventure Korea trip to Jeju Island. It is an island off the southern coast of Korea. It is sometimes called Korea's Hawaii since it is a volcanic island. We got there on Friday to pretty great weather. Went to a beach, and got to do a little swimming. The water was pretty cold, but it was fun to be able to swim in the clear, blue water, as I had never done that before. Even got to see a big group of dolphins swim by, jumping out of the water and everything.
On Saturday we went to hike up Mount Halla, which is a big dormant volcano. It was drizzling when we started. Kept raining harder and harder on the way up. We got 6k into the 8k up before they turned us around because of the rain. We were already drenched, which was good, because the trip down was basically like hiking down a stream. You literally had to jump from rock to rock, picking the ones that were sticking out above the rushing water. Kinda a bummer that we didn't get to make it to the top, but an adventure non the less.
Went to a Trick Art Museum, a Tea Museum, a Sex Museum, some caves where the Japanese kept weapons during WWII, and finished the trip off with popcorn and a beer at a Chinese acrobatics/motorbike show, which was amazing. They put I think 6 motorcycles in this little ball all going upside down, and this way and that. I don't think I breathed the whole time I was so nervous they were going to crash.
A pretty good trip for sure. I could have used at least a few more days on the island. I didn't realize how nice it was to get out of the city until we were on our way back.
Back to the grind now. We don't have another break until our week off in July. Don't know what we are going to do for that yet, but our goal is to try to plan that by this week, so I will keep you updated. Hope all is well for you. Talk to you again soon.
Caves
Trick Art Museum
The now infamous, with us at least, jumping photo.
