Greg's Visit, Yongma Land Photo Shoot, and a Few Events at School

So normally I post about one month per blog entry but this time I think I will focus on Greg's visit.  I hadn't seen Greg since the beginning of August 2014, meaning it had been about 9 months since I had seen him last, so I must admit I was pretty excited for him to come visit me in Korea.  We spent a lot of time going around and visiting mutual friends, some knew he was coming and others we decided to surprise. 

Before I go into too much about Greg's visit, I will start with some events at school.  Two things I forgot to mention in the April post was that I got a new student in kindergarten and she is pretty shy.  I'm hoping she will open up more as she continues to learn English.  My students have also started Show and Tell and they are really enjoying bring things in.  I've seen them bring in USBs, robots, books, etc.  Some normal kid items and others that are not so much a toy and more interesting like the USB.  But hey, as long as they are learning English and having fun, who cares? 

Photos By: Ehd Mallo

 



Though I have to say they are a pretty interesting class to teach.  The girl doesn't speak unless she has to, one boy is over sensitive, another boy cries because he doesn't want to do work, and the last boy wants everything and all the attention.  I actually think I had an easier time dealing with my advanced class of ten then this lower class of four.  It has definitely been a learning experience for me and it is a challenge trying to figure out what each kid needs and how to best teach them.  There was one point they all were just like we won't do work so I made them lay on the mat and close their eyes for five minutes.  They decided they would rather be sitting at the table doing work than laying down doing nothing since I wouldn't let them play until the work was done.

 

Anyway, we have had a bunch of events since there were a series of small holidays and a lot of kids were absent due to vacations and field trips.  My school had off for Children's Day so we had a kindergarten event the day before where we played with bubbles on the roof, did facing painting, played games in big gym, and made water bottles.  The kindergarteners had a lot of fun and I gave them all stickers.  We also gave stickers and snacks to the older kids.  For Parent's Day, we helped the kindergarteners make small carnations for their moms and dads.  Of course, my kids did not want to stand still for a picture, so that took a while.  Last was Teacher's Day and I got a bunch of cards and small gifts from the kids.  It was actually quite funny as my first graders were lining up to give me presents outside the door while I was finishing up teaching kindergarten.  The supervisor had to shoo them away because they were so insistent.  Sadly the Agriculture Field Trip was cancelled due to high levels of yellow dust in the air.

Photos By: Ehva Ahve Madriaga

 

 

My other classes have been a lot of fun too.  For example, we tried making a food web in one of my science classes with paper links and it turned into a giant paper ball.  We played a game like Simon says where we had to move in directions while holding hands as we studied about directions and learned which way to go and how it was dependent on the way you were looking.  Also things are settling down nicely as we just hired another teacher so all the classes should be covered again.  It's nice when things settle back into a routine.  Alexa and I even saw this cat stalk a frog on the way to work and then get freaked out and run away.  Hehe.

Photos By: Jayson Fausto Lagazon

So one of the first things Greg and I did when he returned was go and have dinner with Tony and Amber at Jason's restaurant, Jeju Tamhari 제주담하리.  I hadn't seen Tony since Greg had left so it was nice to see old friends and Jason was surprised and really happy to see Greg.  Jason is an excellent host and friend and spent a lot of time visiting while we were at his restaurant and he even ordered some things from outside his restaurant to enjoy together.  He is always so generous and his restaurant is great and has great service.  Many of his customers don't even realize that he is the owner because he works just as hard as everyone else.  It was a lot of fun visiting him and a great meal.  I highly recommend his restaurant if you live in the Bundang area.

Photos By: Yehdenimax Salcedo

The next day we did the Masquerade photo shoot that I had planned for a while.  A group of photographers from the Philippines who live here in South Korea had asked if they could take my picture.  Anna had mentioned wanting to do a photo shoot at Yongma Land and I really wanted to do my masquerade costume as I finally got all the pieces for the costume together so I just figured I'd check off three things on my list at once.  It was a lot of fun.  Steph came to help Alexa with makeup.  Greg, Anna, Elisa, and I were the cosplay models.  Brian, Ehva, Ehd, Jayson, Adil, and Yehdenimax were nice enough to photographer the event.  Brian even made a video of the photo shoot which turned out great.

So we actually ran late a bit so I was a little sad that we had kept the photographers waiting as they had arrived an hour early.  Thankfully Greg was able to follow the directions I had printed off pretty well and we had a Korean with us in case someone needed to call to get let in.  Thankfully that wasn't a big deal as someone else was already calling when we got there.  It was busier than I expected an abandoned theme park to be, but hey can't complain.  There were other people taking cosplay pictures and also wedding photos there.

Photos By: Brian V. Pallera



It took a while to do makeup so the photographers had to wait a bit but Alexa did a fantastic job on everyone's faces.  Greg and Elisa were done first so they got a lot of photographs together and I hate to say it but Greg's costume matched Elisa's way better than it did mine.  It was too bad that I didn't get more of just the two of us but Alexa was nice enough to get some photos for me.  The place was very worn down, but that fit the masquerade theme, especially my character, the Fallen Angel.  Anna was the Ice Princess, Greg was the Guard, and Elisa was the Judge.  Alexa and I had a little story about how Elisa was judging me and I was reaching for innocence and the Guard believed I wasn't worthy but the Judge had offered it to me.  It was a fight for me to grasp onto the innocence but in the end the Guard (Greg) understands and offers it to me.  I quite like the idea behind the story and costumes.

Photos By: Alexa Hope

Anyway, with six photographers, we were kept busy for a while.  I got a lot of pictures by the boxes and stairs though sadly none by the piano or much by the hanging flowers.  But then again, the hanging flowers didn't really suit my character.  There were also some cliff like areas that made for excellent photos though I did scratch up my new shoes quite a bit.  The price of doing a good cosplay....  There was a Korean cosplayer there who asked to take pictures with us which was cool.  We got some really good pictures from her.  I'm not sure if the cosplayer or the photographer sent me the pictures, but as always I will list her name to give her credit.  There was another Korean who randomly asked for our photo.  Being a foreigner who cosplays sure does make me popular. 

Photos By: Go Maeng Ii 꼬맹이



Anyway, the photo shoot was a success and even two weeks later photos are coming in from the photographers via Facebook.  After that, we watched Avengers that weekend.  I enjoyed the movie and I was surprised to find a small Avengers Exhibit in Sunae the next weekend with Greg, while we were waiting to surprise our friend Sujin (aka Sue), that had models from the different movies that you could by and a huge Hulk Buster that you could take a picture with.  It was huge and made me feel tiny.  Even Greg looked pretty small next to it.  We also watched a lot of other Marvel movies that I hadn't had a chance to see before while he was here, among some other good movies.

While we were waiting for Sue we went to a bakery and these teenage boys were super excited to see us.  I don't think they spoke too much English as they kept repeating loudly, "I love America!" and "I love you!"  It was quite funny actually, and then they came back later when they saw us to say hi again.  I thought that was the last we would see them but much to my surprise they rode their bikes around us one more time later in the day.  They seemed to have really liked us and I must admit it was really amusing for me to watch.  Plus Greg speaks some Korean and is great with kids, so that is always fun to watch.  It was also funny to watch him speak to the kids in my school while he waited for me to get ready to leave.  I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, the students, Greg, or me.  Hehe.

Photos By: Adil Amistoso

 

Anyway, we finally met with Sue which was nice but as always she was overworked.  She had been late because she had had to work that Saturday and then dropped her phone on the subway.  But we took her back to Jason's restaurant and had a good time before going to a coffee shop where I got strawberry bingsu.  It was okay but not as good as the strawberry bingsu I get at the Korean Dessert Café.  Actually I have to admit with Greg visiting and all, I ate a lot of galbi (Korean barbeque) and bingsu those two weeks.  Not that I am complaining, because good galbi and bingsu is awesome.  Greg helped her with her resume and I realized that I have a very limited vocabulary which is funny because Greg says I speak too difficultly when I talk to non-native speakers, which is true.

Photos By: Adil Amistoso

Another friend of Greg's that we met while he was here visiting was his friend Jayoung who had just had a baby.  That was kind of awkward for me as I'm not particularly a fan of babies and was shown lots of baby pictures.  But hey, you can't fault a proud new mom for wanting to show off baby pictures.  We actually met her on Children's Day since I was off of work and it was the first time I had gone to Pangyo.  We went to a little café in Avenue Paris and they had some events going on for Children's Day.  Some statues actually surprised me as they weren't statues but people dressed like statues which I realized after one turned its head.  It was a nice area that might be worth checking out again. 

Photos By: Jayson Fausto Lagazon

Sadly Greg's two week visit went by really fast and he had to go home.  He was nice enough to mail some boxes for me and I realized just how much cheaper it was to use slow mail instead of whatever I normally send it by that gets it there in two weeks.  I will have to remember that as I get closer to finishing my contract and send things home for when I return to living in the States.  Other than that, things are getting busy again as Seoul Comic World is coming up and I have been asked to participate in a Korean cosplayer movie as Asuna Yuki from Sword Art Online.  So look forward to hearing about those events hopefully in the near future.  ^.^