As always, I am busy. Recently, Megan had been spending the nights at my place since she has a male friend from China visiting her and staying at her place. His English name is Rocky because he liked the movie so much. He is a lot of fun and full of energy. He makes my hyper days look tame .... But still, he is a really nice guy and its fun to hang out with him and Megan. As much as I adore Megan, it reminding me how much I like having down time and my own space. Also, Anna is finally back in Korea, too, so I'm expect a lot more activeness. She also spent a night at my place and we talked about a lot of fun things we could do whenever we return to America. Also, my students made little South Korean flags for Liberation Day which was kind of fun. It is nice because we are more caught up so can take the time to do more fun activities. Though I am still pretty busy with progress reports and the big three month testing period.
We took our students on a field trip to the Arpia Museum and I think they had a lot of fun there. The museum theme was based on the four seasons and had a lot of fun activities that the kids could do to represent the different seasons. For summer, they made glow-in-the-dark animals and shapes to put in the garden. For spring, they played in a bean pit and made sesame seed treats. Bella and Jordan decided to give me a bean bath and I was covered in beans. I think a few went down my shirt .... -.- For fall, there was a ball bit where you could knock more balls down out of baskets. The students could also throw suction cup balls at trees to represent apple trees that are ripe during the fall. Winter was pretty boring though as it was just a Christmas scene with a polar bear and igloo that they could have pictures taken in front off. We had lunch there and the student's parents gave me lots of food, which was really nice of them.
Now that Anna is back, I expect to be more busy. The first weekend she was home, we went to the Weta Fantasy Exhibit at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza as it was its last weekend here in Korea. Ironically it was the same day as my sister's birthday. I'm really glad I went because it was really cool with its Lord of the Rings, the Wandering Woods, and Gloaming statues and pictures. I really want to check out the other stuff Weta has done. I think my favorite was a large statue of a Nazgul from LOTR. Either way, it was a lot of fun and the details on the statues were very intense and scarily anatomically correct. There were all sorts of creatures such as dragons, griffons, and many made up creatures. It was a nice event to go to as it was something that I am interested in and not just something I went to because I was invited. As we left, we saw the police doing a brass concert so we stuck around and listened to that for a while. I took some pictures around the trolls from Hobbit and different dragon-like creatures. It's too bad Greg had already left Korea because I think he would have enjoyed the event as well.
A friend reminded me that I hadn't updated my resume since coming to Korea so I have been doing that. I forgot just how much I hated writing those. But it is always good to be prepared as you never know what will happen. I also went and got passport photos done and it always amuses me just how much Koreans have to look perfect. We had to wait a day for our pictures because they need to Photoshop us to look better. It is almost impossible to find a professional or nice photo here in Korea that has not gone through Photoshop. They have camera apps on your phones that use a beauty mode to make your camera pictures look more beautiful.
So Anna and I went to a cosplay park in Yangjae to check it out. There were a bunch of Koreans but we did manage to find a foreigner who could give us information. It seems it is a closed group as cosplaying it not accepted much in Korea. It is pretty extreme where people will lie to their families and hide it from their work so that they don't get into any trouble. Also, there are some memorials there that would look good in the background of pictures but we found out that it isn't good to take pictures with them as it is insulting to Koreans. Which is understandable when we found out that they were war memorials. I can respect the Koreans' wishes that people don't just take random pictures with the memorials.
The park wasn't that impressive but that may have been because I couldn't interact with the people much because I don't speak Korean. The foreigner we met gave us advice to go to the Comic Con in October which should be pretty cool with Halloween so Anna and I are trying to get together a group to go with us to the Comic Con. Hopefully a few people speak Korean as that would be a great help. Speaking of cosplays, Anna and I ended up buying corsets from a girl name Katie. I'm not sure I would have bought them on my own, but I ended up with the white one... not that I'm able to put it on myself.
We had a birthday party for Ashley in my kindergarten recently. Also, the students wore their hanbok (Korean traditional clothes) the day before Chuseok break and we make sonpyeong ? (traditional rice cake snacks with beans inside). I love when the kids wear their hanbok to school. They are so adorable. Otherwise, we have a new teacher, Alexa, who took over when Chuck left and I really like her so far. She is a very hard worker. We were suppose to get a part-timer as well but the girl decided to tell the school the day before she was suppose to start that she wasn't going to do it, even though she had already signed the contract. Oh well. We don't need people like that working at our school though it does make things a little difficult until we find a new teacher. Otherwise, things are going well.
I wanted to do very little over Chuseok as I have been doing stuff every weekend since Greg found out he was leaving Korea. As much as I promised to be social, everyone needs their downtime occasionally. So needless to say I was definitely looing forward to a relaxing Chuseok break. Though sadly, I did have to clean my apartment because of having company so long that it kind of got very messy. T.T
So on Chuseok, I decided to go to Everland with Anna and her married co-workers, Zack and Melissa, since we figured it would be normal crowds even though it was a holiday and foreigners got a decent discount. I hadn't been there before so figured it could be fun. We all got coupons for going though the coupons were pretty confusing to use and we weren't sure which was which because it was hard to decipher the Korean. But still, it was free discounts for some of us so couldn't complain. So we wandered around. We would have gotten on what I considered to be a large Ferris wheel (though they tell me it was small) but it was no longer in use (just as a few other rides like the roller coaster that Zack wanted to ride were closed). I will start off by saying that Everland reminded me a lot of Disney World.
We started off taking the Sky Way (chair lift) then getting a Q Pass (fast pass *cough cough*) for the T Express. It is the world's steepest wooden roller coaster so I'm surprised I got on it. It was a good thing that I took off my glasses.... Anyway, the ride is so popular that you can't even get in line unless you have a Q pass. Normally I just cling to the safety rail but this one had me screaming. It was fun but it took a while before my legs would stop shaking afterwards .... It was an interesting ride and I recommend it for those who like rollercoasters though if you are like me, well it may not be the best ride for you. I didn't feel too well afterwards.
Anyway, we grabbed a Q Pass for the Amazon Express (water rafting ride) before doing some other stuff. We ate at Snack Busters which had quick foods like chicken, corn dogs, dokpoki, etc. It was okay but nothing I would personally recommend. We also ate at a burger place and the Town's Market Restaurant which served typical Korean food. None of them were great but normal priced for Korean restaurants which was surprising considering that we were in a theme park. Anyway, we did ride the Amazon Express and the Q Pass made it so we basically got on as soon as we got there which was nice so we grabbed another one and got on again later. I got more wet the second time we went on the ride, mostly my shoes and my back, but for the most part we were lucky and didn't get soaked.
We watched the Carnival Parade at Carnival Square which reminded me of the little bit that I saw of the Rio movie. Madagascar and Rio are part of the Everland attractions. Anyway, everyone had feathers on their costumes which was interesting. The parade was a bit of dancing and normal parade. Nothing that you wouldn't seen in other theme park parades. We waited in line for the Royal Jubilee Carousel which was a waste of time and slow. Plus the artwork on the Carousel is not what I would consider appropriate for children. Actually, there were a couple of places that I thought the artwork at Everland was a little too risqué for children and its a children's theme park. There was a lot of different themes in Everland, like Greek, Roman, Fairy, Victorian, world cultures, etc.
We checked out Global Village which is basically It's a Small World (like I said, Everland reminded me and Melissa of the Disney Parks that we have gone to). The song was a little different but still had the same vibe as It's a Small World. Mystery Mansion is a shooting game that reminding me of the Buzz Lightyear shooting attraction except things became animated and did things when you hit the green dot. I tied with Anna with 4400 points. Melissa won with 6000 points. We also saw some animals like parrots and the fennec fox.
My favorite ride was the Rotating House which had two warring dragon gargoyles fighting (at least I think that was what was going on as everything was in Korean). We went in and the seats swung back and forth. It made you feel like you were going in a complete circle though because the walls and doors were also rotating. Logically, I knew we weren't, but at one point, it was hard to follow what I knew logically, because I could feel myself being lifted out of my seat. Melissa had to tell me to ground my feet so I didn't feel like I was spinning. I have to say, the illusion was pretty good because even though I knew we were not spinning, that the room was, it still felt like it. I would have gotten freaked out more if Melissa hadn't suggested planting my feet in a good spot. Still, it was definitely an awesome ride that I would highly recommend.
I also really liked how pretty the Rose Garden was. It had a lot of Greek, Victorian, Roman, and fairy styles to it. It smelled great and there were all sorts of kinds of roses there. Though roses are not my favorite flower and I'm not actually a fan of red roses, the garden was beautiful and smelled wonderful. I really liked the fairy wings that you could take pictures with. It also had a couples area where they could make glass balls and hang it for Venus (Aphrodite in Greek) to see. Otherwise, though we didn't ride a lot, it was still a fun and fulfilling was to spend the day. I did get sunburn and was bright red but as always it has faded to a reddish brown already and is becoming more tan than burn. I have to say I am grateful for the Cherokee blood that keeps me from staying too much like a lobster. Other than that, I finished my Chuseok break with a day cleaning my apartment and relaxing. Happy Chuseok everyone!
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