Modicum of Mementos (or Manda has more pictures to share)

I love the cute stuffed produce and food in the picture above, I'm trying to figure out if I want to get one to bring home with us! I am a fan of the banana, but there's also toast, a burger, and donuts down in the very bottom row. They're just too cute. 

So welcome to another round of me posting various interesting pictures from our location here in South Korea. I like taking pictures and I especially like finding things of interest, so this should be fun for everyone! Of course, any questions are welcome, I will do my best to explain things though. 

I understand that the delicious items found in this bag are a regional specialty here in the Cheongju area. Unfortunately my searching has come up with nothing, so I'm not sure what you'd call them. I'll keep trying. 

This is the delicious contents of the above bag. Take a moment and think of waffles, delicious warm waffles that not only taste good but smell amazing too. That's what these yummy treats are, but the large walnut shaped ones have a sweet bean paste inside while the peanut shaped ones have peanuts. Both are delicious and can be found while walking around on the streets. Some of the stands that sell these also have waffles too which are delicious. 

We found a delicious little restaurant around here with very reasonable prices and I'm slowly looking at sampling the various items on the menu. The one above was from this week. It's bibimbap and it is quite amazing. Bibimbap has many variations and it sometimes served in a hot stone bowl. This was one of my first introductions to Korean food at home at a small restaurant near Indianapolis. In the stone bowl you're supposed to stir everything together and that helps ensure that the usually raw egg placed on top is cooked.

This is one of my favorite little girls-- trying on my glasses. She's seriously too cute. 

Homework has become a big thing here at our hagwon, a project taken up by our director. I'm sure you've noticed my many criticisms of our boss's English abilities and I see errors probably everyday. This was one of them and I'm just not really sure what's happening?

Periodically I take toys from small children and photograph them. Nah, not so much. I ended up with Carley's Pokemon toy, however, because she was not being very good and I took care of it until class was over. It was kind of cute and I figured I'd get a picture. 

Another unique thing I've seen while we've been here has been this inflatable baby-shaped body to display diapers. There was the Huggies brand one and another Korean brand. It makes sense, it was just a rather interesting thing to see. 

We went to a local mall that's also part of an apartment complex (huge, rich area of the city) and I thought it was interesting that there is a female parking lot for the customers. Makes sense considering that South Korea has very high sexual assault rates, sadly. :/

This is really cool and I wish I had gotten a better picture, but they're moving so quickly on this building that I didn't get the chance. Looking through the doorway on the floor you can see the tubes placed for the ondol heating for the apartment. They were placed very precisely and it's pretty neat to see how it works. The ondol heating pumps hot water through the pipes to heat the room/home from the floor.

This unique work of art was found on the Chungbuk University campus here in Cheongju. There's a handful of art displayed on the grounds which I may post later, but this was particularly cool. 

 

Finally, on our walk across the river from Shinae (downtown) I spotted this on one of the pillars. It's pretty neat. The text in the balloon reads: "where is human rights?" and if that isn't a cool message, I don't know what is. I've enlarged the image below for detail and easier to read text. 

I'll keep hunting around for more photographic evidence of life over here. Hopefully some video too!

Play Performances and Graduation Recap

The culmination of our efforts, graduation!

Hello there, sorry for the delay, though I figured Zach already touched on this whole play and graduation business and I would wait until I posted my own take. Now that all this business has blown over it doesn't seem as bad, but it was a trying period, almost on par with the Christmas chaos. 

The play business was several weeks in the making with lots of research time, debating pulling out our hair, and children running amok. One of the first challenges was choosing a play. I overshot this one with flying colors thinking that I could somehow do Peter Pan with 10 kindergarten kids. Soon enough my class dropped to 9 as one of my kids was no longer coming to our school (I miss you Stella!). Time to reevaluate. Lo and behold, after reviewing the script that I had found I realized that this was not going to work and I needed something new and fast. I finally settled on Stone Soup, easy enough in concept and I had found a script I could tailor down quickly and most of the kiddos would be using the same basic line. 

I thought everything was under control at this point, but then I ran into a motivation and logistics piece. First of all, it was hard to explain to the kids what we were doing and why we were doing it. How do I, with minimal useful Korean language skills, explain to nine 5 and 6 year olds that we were doing a play and that we were going to be practicing it for the upcoming weeks? An explanation on the board didn't work, so thank goodness for me, our Korean teacher came to the rescue! I explained what was happening, gave her a copy of the script, and she performed a miracle by getting them to cooperate and explaining what we were doing in a way that they understood. I'm also thankful for the fact that the "main characters" were able to use a script during the play.  I'm not so thankful because we were stuck up in our room instead of being able to practice downstairs in the gym where we could set up in a way they could remember and practice. 

With that taken care of we got down to business. I changed the main part of the hungry beggar into two parts with Michael and James taking them (they're kind of a pair anyway). Evelyn was my first poor villager who had to wait in her house for the beggars to knock and then answer them. Tomas was my second poor villager who did the same. Evelyn later brought the cabbage for the pot and Tomas brought the tomatoes. 

Thank goodness for Hana teacher for saving the day. Here she's helping run them through the play "Stone Soup". After knocking on the door they wait for the other "villagers" to bring items to make their special soup!

Part of my crew waits very impatiently for their turn to go. Julia, on the far left, first brought the pot and water, and later she brought the onions and potatoes. Sarah brought the carrots (and later the mushrooms since I wasn't sure if Daniel 1 would be present or not). John brought the wood to start the fire. Daniel 2 first brought the salt and pepper and then brought the meat for the pot. 

Of course, what's a show/performance without the fancy backdrop and banner to promote it? The piano in the bottom corner was also brought out so that some of the children could perform songs for the parents. 

Our director even got cute little caps and gowns for the graduating class. Happy Graduation Lily, Susan, Chris, Luke, Kate, Carley, and Aiden! The ceremony itself was first and they were given cute little diplomas and a nice set of colored pencils. 

Here my class prepares for the big event by... running around like crazies. I think that in the time they were forced to stay in this small room with adults running around at least three of them were injured in some shape or form. Evelyn took a nosedive and hit her head on the wall when she went to lay on the cushioned mat in the corner, Julia and Daniel 2 were pushed, and there were the usual squabbles and tears. 

Everything is ready to go here, including David lying on the floor. To the far left you can see the doors to the school along with my two table "houses" and my other play props. On the green counter you can see part of the props for Hana teacher's Jasper class which was the Do Re Mi song from the Sound of Music. Then on the floor and to the right are the tree "costumes" for the Elmer class, the fence, witches broom, cauldron and various other things for their rendition of Hansel and Gretel. 

So I had to get creative with props and set things, so I decided that the houses for the play would be tables turned on one end. I made the rooftops out of cereal boxes and then just used paper for the doorknobs and windows. They turned out pretty cute I thought. 

This is my masterpiece (I got really into this prop business), aside from the vegetables. The wood at the bottom of the chair was placed there by John, then he was responsible for starting the "fire".

After placing the wood John pulled the tab with his name on it (reminders are good for little kids) and unfolded the accordion paper to make this lovely little fire. The parents were impressed and loved it (including the MC that was hired for the event) and the kids thought it was fun too. 

One by one the kids dropped in one or two items into the pot, though Daniel 2 got to shake the salt and pepper in right after the pot and water were placed. Julia, who placed the pot, also added the "water" which was small pieces of paper that I had cut up in two shades of blue to make it more fun. 

Here Hana teacher lined them up to go out and perform Bumble Bee since they were first up.

My little bumble bees. Daniel 2 hates performing in front of people, I'm sure you can tell who I mean.

The girls also performed the customary k-pop dances for the group. They work on these for weeks. They've started stepping it up and using clips from 3 or 4 songs and Lily in yellow is their ringleader and head dancer.

OH YEAH. How could I forget costumes? I didn't, but I wish I could. At first this was just going to be a small production, but then our director found out that some grandparents and other family were coming to the graduation. That means costumes and more effort/money on her part. The costumes aren't an unusual thing by an means and it seems pretty standard to rent costumes for kids for special events. What is unusual is our director's taste in costumes. She asked us into the office one day and asked us about what kind of costumes the kids would need for the plays. We both explained the basics of the plays, mine being Stone Soup and a town of poor people visited by two poor, hungry beggars, and Zach's Dino Pet play with some kids, a dinosaur, a doctor, a parent and various other normally dressed people. Obviously something got lost in translation, or she just didn't care. See the above costume for evidence. 

Unfortunately for me, I had yet another cold around this time and was feeling generally miserable. I even retreated upstairs for a while when we were supposed to have class after taking cold medicine that knocked me out. Stressed and sick, great! Somehow I made it through though and we were able to say goodbye to this rather busy event finally.

So what happened exactly? My town of poor beggars ended up as a town of fruits and veggies being visited by two dressed down clowns. I had a strawberry, two apples, two pineapples, some miscellaneous green/yellow/white thing, a turnip, and two beggar clowns. O-kay!

The rest of the group ensemble was just as interesting. Zach had two witches, a sailor, a dragon instead of a dinosaur, and other miscellaneous things. The Hansel and Gretel costumes were just as interesting. Lots of flashy/sparkly costumes and some animals (including the two squirrels above). 

Some of them weren't terribly impressed by their costumes and Lily seemed to be rather embarrassed to wear her sparkly vest and shirt for the play. It's hard being a pre-teen! 

Here the older kids practice during the day, before the event in the evening. I think we were all grateful when it was over.

Finally, the big event started around 5:30pm and once everyone was assembled the graduation ceremony (the first picture above) started. Our director had nice diplomas and folders for the graduating students and a nice colored pencil set. There was some food set out for people who attended. The ceremony was first, and pictures were taken with Zach and the child and their parents (since it was his class graduating). Poor Zach had a rather gimpy knee around this time from too much rough housing with the kids so he just kind of limped around everywhere. 

After the graduation and pictures were taken we finally got started with the plays and performances. I will say that I am super grateful that the MC guy was there since he made it so much easier on us. Zach narrated the plays and I was shuffling kids around at various times for songs and helping put on and put away costumes. Zach's play was first and that was interesting due to the minimal "on stage" practice and personalities. Aiden, the play's dinosaur, decided he'd rather run around and do whatever he felt like, which isn't surprising. After getting through that it was my class's turn and that was interesting too. They did pretty well, all things considered, though they fail to pay attention all too frequently. Then, finally, there were some ending speeches (which we had to do, of course) and pictures, and finally it was time to clean up and be finished! We also got snagged for a bunch of pictures with kids and Carley's grandmother decided she loved me and wanted a picture of us with Carley. Daniel 1's mom also wanted a picture with me since she apparently really likes me.

Since Zach's knee was gimpy and swollen (it was preeettty) we decided to opt out of going to dinner with the director, Hana, and a few of the parents so he could put it up and rest. She said she'd bring us dinner which we thought was rather nice, so we waited, and waited. Then we finally went to bed around 11pm and heard her come in shortly after. We didn't think much of it, but were so exhausted from the day's events that we just went to bed. In the morning after we woke up we discovered that she had left McDonald's on the counter, a decent gesture, if it hadn't been sitting out all night and we had already given up the night before. At least the craziness was over though? I guess. 

Not All Sunshine, Rainbows, and Kimchi

My new class at the start of a new school year in March 2013.

I've wanted to create this post for a while, but I've been struggling with how to write it. In fact, I had a previously written post that sat around as a draft for a while, but I pushed it aside and eventually just deleted it. Why? Because I think it's kind of challenging to touch on the not so great parts of living and working here in South Korea, without giving the impression that it's a horrible idea and you're doomed if you think you should try it. Rather, I would like to impress upon anyone interested that while going to South Korea is sure to be an adventure, there are also many aspects (particularly employment aspects) that can really influence your experience. It might sound kind of silly to mention it since it's why you're here, but teaching is going to influence the rest of your everyday life too.

In addition, while it may be challenging to accurately portray and address the reality, I feel as though it's unfair to have a blog that is pretty much just highlighting the positive parts of the experiences we've had here without touching on the less-than-great ones. It's something I'm not a huge fan of emphasizing, but it would be a disservice for any other internet browsing sleuths wanting more information about teaching in South Korea. I know that I prefer to have the whole picture, or at least most of it so that I can mentally prepare and maybe even plan ahead for potential situations that might pop up.

So, without any further delay, I will just take some time to talk about some of the challenges, inconveniences, and pains-in-the-a** that I know can and may happen to anyone. We're more than willing to help answer questions if anyone would have them as well (related to our personal experiences), so feel free to drop a line.

--- The contract. It's good to find a good one, but don't rely on your director/employer following it like you expect. This is something I'm sure comes up rather frequently. It's important when you start this whole thing (especially in terms of hagwons) to carefully read over your contract before signing it, but don't expect it to be followed to a T by any means. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 5 or 6 contract violations to varying degrees by our boss, but it's probably more than that if we would sit down and get right to it. We're talking about violations ranging from payday changes, health insurance, pension, overtime pay, hours worked, and others. It's infuriating to know that this is standard, but I can personally think of several people that have really gotten the short end of the stick because their director has not followed the contract or was dishonest in some way. Violations can be followed up with the Labor Board, but I feel like this is something where you need to evaluate your options and do some research before moving forward.

--- Working hours. Expect these to change at a whim, be violated, and make no sense. This in part goes along with the contract violations. It's an employers market over here in South Korea and you can expect directors to try and squeeze every last cent out of you and by that I mean your time. Every month of our time here thus far has seen me getting jilted for overpay time, and it varies for Zach from month to month because our director has been sending him to other hagwons to work part time too because it's extra money to line her pockets. The standard is 120 teaching hours per month, but I can't think of a time when I've seen that except for briefly during the school break period in winter and I'm honestly surprised she didn't dock my pay. Long hours without breaks are not a surprising thing.

-- Teaching materials and expectations. I like to think of teaching here in South Korea as a dual responsibility, from my perspective anyway. On one hand you're here to look pretty and foreign, to be that piece of prestige for your school that indicates that they're reaching out to make the school one of the best and take care of the children during their time at the school. On the other hand you're here to teach English. I sometimes think that the latter is secondary to the former. What does this have to do with teaching materials and expectations? Well, there is the expectation that you're supposed to look good and be kind and make the kids and thus their parents happy. This is one thing that can be made difficult by your teaching materials or lack of said teaching materials. Our school is bigger on workbooks to get through the day, while some schools have more emphasis on more technologically advanced things. Each child in our school averages 4 workbooks or so at any given time. So it's a matter of figuring out what workbook goes into which time slot during which day of the week. Easy enough, but that's the most support we've really been given as far as teaching. "Here, use this book according to this schedule. Bye!" is the typical way it goes. Our director (whose poor English is no big surprise at this point) will also pick story books that are inappropriate for the class age/level and I just shake my head and pick something more appropriate. Things are different in public schools and other hagwons, of course, but I know that lack of support is definitely not uncommon here either.

-- Winter can be somewhat unpleasant. As far as living here goes, we eased into fall pretty well, but winter was absolutely terrible for us.  Due to our location and being a bit farther out from the city, we found ourselves trapped inside a lot due to the bitter cold record temperatures with little to do. I know a lot of people tend to drink in the winter since there isn't a lot else to do here, but if you have some sort of crafting hobby, enjoy video/computer games, reading, and other things, by all means make sure you have them for winter.  School schedules also get crazy during wintertime so be prepared!  Many schools have a Christmas program which may put big demands on you for a month or two, same with graduation programs at the end of February. Christmas had us working on songs and practicing reading books while February had us struggling to help our kids understand and perform plays and songs for the graduation ceremony. The short days and long nights made things very depressing on top of the stress and demands of making these performances acceptable and getting through the icky cold and flu season (which kids bring to school with them, don't be surprised if you have ill kids in your class or kids getting sick, not fun!) while also being away from home. There is a light at the end of the tunnel with this one though and things seem to improve after the hectic winter season with the holidays and graduation, plus you get some extra time off for the New Year and the Lunar New Year which slightly sweetens the deal (now if only it would be warmer out so you can enjoy it).

-- Communication challenges. This one is probably a given, but expect the unexpected when it comes to channels of communication. Be prepared that some things that you thought you understood when they were explained may not be exactly that, or they may possibly be the complete opposite. This, of course, depends on your ability to tease out the answer you're looking for and the English skills of the person/director that you're talking to. I recently had a conversation with our director regarding a change of class placement for one of our elementary kids, Carley, and it did not go as I had planned at all. My understanding of the conversation was that Carley, who was in my class, was going to be changing to Zach's class instead, but then I confirmed with her not once, but three times, that she would be staying in my class with her former kindy classmates. Okay, that works. The next thing I know the Korean teacher here at the school tells me that no, Carley will in fact be going to Zach's class. I mention to her the communication issue and she just kind of chuckles because she understands how poor our director's English is. Another example is today I was told by the director to bring down the supplies for two of my kindy kids, Daniel and Jun (brothers), when all she meant was that she had supplies for them that she wanted me to take upstairs. Confusing, no? The moral of the story is if you have questions, go and ask them. They might not be a fan of you asking  (it's kind of looked down upon here to question your elders/authority figures), but trust me when I say that you knowing what's going on will probably make you feel better about life, the universe, and everything.

-- Being in the spotlight. Taking a break from the primarily work based critique, this commentary is more general and also has a touch of the positive too. South Korea is fairly homogeneous and while the bigger cities see more foreigners in and out, you're still pretty interesting. It's not uncommon to walk down the street and have people staring, moreso the older population. The children generally have more mixed reactions, but they are the most likely to grin and say "hello" and you can watch their glee at using their English and having a foreigner respond back positively. It's very cute. I think our current record for children greeting us in one day has probably been 3, a number I suspect will go up once the weather becomes nicer. The old ajummas and ajosshis are a bit different in that aspect. I'm fairly tall for a woman, so I think that attracts a few gazes, but one of the more interesting experiences I've had with this has been the old woman that literally stopped walking to stare as we walked past her, even watching and turning as we kept walking away. Some of the men have stared at me too, it's kind of unnerving. In that sense I will say that I kind of look forward to going home so that I can just be one of the group again without people staring fairly frequently. I will say that it's given me some perspective regarding being someone sort of on the outside looking in, something I don't want to go into here, but I hope it's something I can take with me always to give me greater compassion and understanding of those around me.

There are several other things, but these seem to be the main "negatives"-- if you will as far as working and living here. Even then some of these can be taken with a grain of salt, but that depends on the way things are. I will admit to being dissatisfied with the management of the school we're at, the complete chaos at times, and wonder just how she even keeps things "together". I can't really talk about things like co-teachers since our only Korean teacher, who was formerly here all day, is only here part time and she's less of a co-teacher and just teaches her own English classes. For her part though, she's been fantastic and very helpful. Her English is definitely better than the boss lady and we sometimes find her essentially translating for us what she wants/expects.

These things are also admittedly the worst right around the time that they are brought up because we're just so overwhelmed by the expectations and lack of rationale behind the decisions. We've been frustrated, angry, upset, depressed, and other emotions as we tried to figure out the best way to deal with things that have just been sprung on us randomly. The best way we found is to deal with it one day at a time and have a goal, whether it's buying something fun or nice, going out for a nice meal or a drink, looking forward to the next week or month and better weather, or talking to people from home.

All that aside, being here is an experience and I'm glad that it's one we decided to undertake, but our expectation of things not going as we planned has been pushed above and beyond at times. So if you're considering teaching English abroad, at least in South Korea, it's best to expect that things will more than likely not be exactly as you planned. Some things may be nicer than planned, but expect the crazy and not so amusing along the way too.

Don't be a play...a hater

The background for My Dino Pet.

So for the wonderful month of February, which is when kids graduate and move up to the next level of their schooling (for 7 of ours kids it meant the transition from our Hagwon to a real school).  Graduations are of course a huge deal in Korea much like at home, they actually have graduation ceremonies for kindergarten of all things.  I actually remember graduating from the kindergarten vaguely, I slid down a twisty slide and grabbed a piece of paper out of an elderly woman's hands.  So of course our private school was going to go all out for its dinky graduation.

Manda coloring in a roof.

We were informed at the beginning of February that we would be having the children do a play for their parents.  This is the first time the school has attempted this, and it would be for sure a train wreck even before the first curtain call.  Manda and I combed the internet for the least painful plays we could possibly find.  Originally Manda had chosen Peter Pan, however decided to go with the classic Stone Soup since her kids have the attention span of gerbils.  I grabbed a nice little play written by a 12 year old Mexican child by the name of "My Dino Pet."

Working hard on the Stone Soup background.

The month was painful and long, but it was all worth it when we finally finished the night and had a nice long three day weekend.  I had everything ready and Manda and I had even custom made our own backgrounds for the plays to make them look a bit better.  The children themselves actually had costumes ordered from them, Manda's poor villages became fruit and vegetables (for some reason).  My students who were supposed to be 3 small children, a mother, a doctor, and a dinosaur somehow became wizards, a sailor, and two ring masters.  I am not really sure what the the director was thinking with that one, but it is hard to complain about it at this point since it is after the fact.

The little trouble maker.

The star of my play "Peter the Dinosaur" had a blue dragon outfit.  The child I starred in the role is the biggest airhead in my class, so I figured he would enjoy running around on all fours and roaring like a dinosaur.  He certainly performed his role as a crazy lizard.  When the play actually started instead of staying in the cage that he was meant to wait in he ran around the stage and fought me when I tried to put him back. After much coaxing he stayed in his cage and the play went on.  Then when it came to the scene change he once again fought me to stay on the stage, and I literally had to drag him off the stage.  It was pretty mortifying but honestly it was pretty funny not that I can look back on it.

Insert scream goats here.

The best part about the play though is that we are now halfway done with our contract here in Korea.  It is hard to believe that as I am typing this we are 5 and a half months from our flight home.  I have some more content planned for the blog very soon so I shouldn't be such a ghost on here anymore.  Look forward to some very...interesting posts in the future.

A Trip to South Korea's Largest Theme Park! (Lots of Pictures)

We finally went on the big graduation trip with the school and we went to Korea's Largest theme park, Everland. The park is located in Yongin which is just outside of Seoul. The trip itself took about an hour and a half, but there's a rest stop that we went to along the way that I think was about halfway through. Unfortunately for us there were 28 children coming along on the trip ranging from 5 years old up to about 10 or 11, but we found out the good news that two parents were coming along with us for the trip. Chef teacher came too, and thank goodness!

We went downstairs (since we live above our school) around 9:30am or so to wait around and keep an eye on the kiddos while we waited for the bus to come around 10:30am. Chef teacher had placed some sort of rice cakes covered in an almost finely ground corn powder in each of the classrooms and other rooms in the school where they sat briefly in small dishes. I was quite confused. Then, she went back around and collected them all and we were able to eat them. I'm not really sure what they were for, I need to do some research. It was very interesting though.

This is the small lift used to send food and dishes up and downstairs for lunch and snack. Chef teacher had placed one of the small dishes there too.

Finally the bus arrived, Zach and I were assigned to take a box of water out to the bus. Not the most appetizing bottled water ever as it's called "Pocari Sweat", but we did it nonetheless. (After the fact we discovered that it's actually a sports drink type thing, but still.) Once everyone was settled on the bus we did a few stops around Cheongju to pick up some kids from different elementary schools and finally we left for Everland.

Yet another party bus. Well, without the party part that is. Just children wanting snacks opened. About an hour and a half later or so, and a mid-way rest stop and we finally made it to Everland. 

We took a bus/shuttle to Everland itself once the bus parked and we spilled outside into the parking lot. It wasn't until this time that I realized that we were somehow supposed to be in charge of the classes (his and mine, so she said), despite not knowing the park or being competent enough with Korean. Thank goodness for Chef teacher in purple and Julia's mom in the blue jacket. 

I have to admit, despite being chilly out and the snow on the way, the park really is pretty. They have the Snow Festival going on at this time, so everything is winter themed.

One of the first views we saw right outside of the place that we ate our late lunch.

Everyone finally assembled for lunch. I ran away to use the restroom at this point with Luke so I wasn't sure what happened. Like most Korean places they had a self serve water dispenser with cups and there was a small self serve place with kimchi and a type of radish they like to have with meals.

I was informed after getting back that the food options were pork cutlet and fish with rice and a cabbage salad (above) or a similar meal just with the meat, rice, and curry. I got the above option which was admittedly quite delicious. We were in the minority of adults with meals because I noticed that most of the others just helped the kids cut up their meals and then helped various kids by eating some themselves.

After lunch we finally started our Everland excursion. At first we had a big group of 28 with 6 adults, but after lunch the older kids parted ways with us and our Korean teacher went off with the older elementary boys. We then "started" out as a small group of 19, but later dropped down to 13 as some of the kids split off with their parents. We were all together for this part.

The tigers were quite pretty and their habitat was pretty nice (of the not so great ones we also saw).

I can't blame them, seeing boring humans passing regularly doesn't sound exciting enough to wake for.

The bears were trained and did some tricks though. Kind of depressing, really. 

I like this picture because you can see me in the reflection.

There was a petting zoo that was not quite a petting zoo. More of a close up observation spot. They had spoons with extensions here so that you could make a w2000 donation and feed guinea pigs. 

I wish we had seen more of the park, but I did get some interesting pictures. Since we had little ones that couldn't really do rides, we headed toward the animal/zoo type section which was kind of neat. Some of the enclosures were better than others though. 

The fennec foxes were adorable, also sleepy.

This looks familiar...

Like this beaver, we too are far from home. :(

These turtles were pretty cool, and cute.

Heed the signs, and follow the monkey's advice. I'm not sure how well using a railing as a balance beam would go anyway. Good advice, monkey.

I wish we had gotten a picture of us at this bench, but there was no one I trusted with my camera.

In which our director decided that harassing a seal was a good idea. The kids climbed on the fence (we had given up at this point, the director didn't care and we were tired of telling them to do something they didn't do) and all proceeded to yell at the poor seal. One loud voice and lots of little ones yelling "annyeooong" did not make for a happy seal. 

The seal was so irritated that it tossed the blue chuck of pool lining out of the tank at our group. Poor seal.

In another shining example of responsibility, she decided that hoisting the kids up so they could see better was a good idea. I'm not so sure about that...

Then we went to this seal/animal show which was admittedly pretty cute, if cheesy. 

How can anyone resist an otter on a small sailboat?

Things were good up until this part. I was pretty much flipping out. By this point our party had broken down into a group of 12, 3 adults and 9 kids. This little ski lift type thing was a transport to a different level of the park, which was all fine and good. Then we got split up to 1 adult and 3 kids per lift, a large lift, but with a bar that can be easily moved upward. I almost had a panic attack. And why were they letting us do this? I may be a bit of a spoilsport here, but this seemed like a major liability. Yikes!

By this point I had started to breathe normally again since I was able to actually take a few photos, but wow. Fortunately I had girls that actually listened, unlike Zach who got stuck with squirmy Evelyn who tried to bail from under the bar. I was glad when that was over with.

The next time we took these back and forth a few times (since the kids were so little) and they were MUCH nicer than the ones we rode initially. I am a fan of enclosed spaces with closing doors and sitting spaces when travelling with little people. It's also important to note that our director, in all her wisdom, was at this point was pretty much scampering about without counting children, ignoring us and getting ahead, and with us having no real idea of where we were supposed to be going. It made this field trip slightly less fun.

I wish we had had more time to just amble and I could have gotten more pictures, but I'm lucky I got the ones that I did. This tree was pretty and had hand prints in the tree that responded with sounds and music when a little hand filled it.

Since Pororo is so popular here we attempted to go to this, but due to our director and the late time of day we were unable to go. Pororo is everywhere and we even watched it on the bus on the way back. 

Speaking of on the way back, we finally boarded the bus once the park closed (we made it out pretty close to 6pm when it closed) and then headed back. Fortunately, Chef teacher had made kimbap for the ride home and everyone who wanted some got some along with various other snacks. 

We hauled the boxes of water out of the bus, walked up the small road, took off our shoes at the door, deposited the boxes, looked around tiredly, and finally went upstairs and relaxed. Maybe not the most ideal field trip ever and riddled with more anxiety than I anticipated, but I suppose it's a day in the life of a teacher here really. Expecting the unexpected can be a challenging and taxing skill, admittedly.