Field Trips, International Fireworks Festival, Getting Ready for Halloween, and More

 

 

So as many of you know, I LOVE Halloween.  I am interested in cosplaying and so any holiday that I can wear a costume (plus the added bonus of candy) is a holiday I am completely interested in.  Halloween is also one of the biggest events that LCI does, yay!  And this year we are doing a small event for all the classes so we have permission to wear costumes two other days besides the actual day of the Halloween event.  Hmm.... haven't decided what to do yet, but even if I'm the only teacher, I may just wear the costumes for fun. 

 

Anyway, my class is pretty busy so most of our Halloween decorations are small things I saved over the years and coloring pages they had fun with.  Though we did make creepy looking ghosts with our faces on them.  I even made one for my cat Bella .... I wonder what Bella would think of her ghost.  We made pumpkin drawings too which I used as hats but unlike my black cat theme last year, Halloween decorations are sadly lacking.  And I've been sadly disappoint but the older kids have been stealing the little sticky window decorations.  I don't know who it is but it is sad that they are doing it.  I've also been so busy that the monster project ended up being done with Hanna Teacher.  Thanks for your help Hanna Teacher.  But with the two of us helping, the kids ended up with a mommy and baby monster.

So for Halloween, my class will be performing the song Thriller.  Now, I normally avoid this song because a friend of mine was obsessed with it as a kids and overplayed it.  But doing it with my class is pretty fun as they get really into being zombies and actually get all up in my face.  We are constantly laughing throughout the song.  But that means that we still have a lot of memorizing and dancing to learn before Halloween if my kids have any chance at the song contest.  T.T

So we've had two field trips since the last time I posted.  The first was to the Gyeonggi Museum where I have been before, but it was nice because we didn't do the same things that we did the last time we were good.  Which is good because my class has also been there one or two times before with the school.  There was a tower and rock wall that they could climb, a dance mat where they chased lights, bikes that made flowers spin, a money game room, a place where they made Styrofoam cars, and a library where they could read Korean books.  It was a lot of fun. 

The second field trip was our normal hiking trip though I forget the name of the mountain at the moment.  The kids had fun playing in the playgrounds and finding leaves.  Thankfully they didn't try to wonder away much, just walked too fast for the other classes.  John, from Laura's class, was doing this cute bow to the girls which I caught a little on video. 

We also had reading champions where three of my students, Elizabeth, Ian, and William, placed.  I was going to teach Black Beauty and play Horseland with some of my students, but the class got canceled before we could get into it.  We have a new coworker named Kristine and she seems to be doing well so far.  Last, my kindergarten had pictures taken for graduation outside this year, which was a little different than before but much more fun as my class got to play outside afterwards.  Didn't get much work done but it was fun and totally worth it.  Minus the tug of war on my arms.  Haha.  Otherwise things are normal at work and starting next month I will have some extra prep time to enjoy.

So, some random things that I have been doing that are not related to school.  I hit over 500 completed anime, which includes OVAs, sequels, movies, series, etc.  I saw the ending of a lunar eclipse where the moon was read.  I watched the moon come out again as it slower slid back into white.  I helped Alexa go around to small shops looking for the perfect pieces for her Alessa cosplay which will have pictures in the next post where I talk about Seoul Comic World.  And I learned how to iron clothes as some of my costumes were in desperate need of ironing after being in storage for two years.

Last, I returned to the International Fireworks Festival again this year.  We were by the bridge so we could see the low fireworks and all but the very bottom of the higher fireworks. Though the bridge made it hard to take pictures, and being by the water was cold, it was still a pretty good spot.  Seems like you have to get there at 8 AM to get the really good seats.  We brought food this time and I took Kristine and Anna.  It was Kristine's first day in Korea so it she was pretty tired,  We also met up with some Korean friend's of Anna's.  Italy's was my favorite as it was well timed with the music and had amazing ground fireworks. 

I believe England, China, and Korea were the other countries participating.  All of them seemed to play a song from their home country and a tribute to Korea.  Anna taught us how to play Pass the Pig or Toss the Pig.  Something like that.  It sounded stupid but was actually pretty addicting.  They also did the fireworks off the bridge again and since we were right next to the bridge, it was pretty cool to see, well minus the smoke of course.  My next post should be about Seoul Comic World and my adventure there.

WETA Exhibit, Cosplay Park, Chuseok, Everland and More

 

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!