It's Party Time! April Birthdays and Wrap-up

Here we are, already at the end of April. Some parts of this adventure have seemed endless, while some of them have just flown by. For whatever reason I seem to be mentally stuck in March, though I blame the weather for that!

This month, in addition to multiple field trips, was also the April birthday party. Lucky for me, I was included in the festivities because like Sarah and Aron, I too turned a year older. Our Korean co-worker brought me a chocolate cake from Paris Baguette on my actual birthday, then our director took us out to dinner at an (extremely) local Italian restaurant. Then, near the end of the month we celebrated the birthdays of the month, and I had a seat of honor as well. I had a seat of honor and a cake at the party, and the kids/parents were even kind enough to get me gifts.

My special spot for the birthday festivities! The cake itself was delicious, but I'm a fan of the dark chocolate stars on top too. These bakeries know how to make good cakes.

These are all the things my families got me for my birthday, I feel so loved! The little yellow and orange larva near the top middle is my favorite, from Chloe. Mostly because it was a little bag with a card, the larva plush, and a small wrapped tube of lipstick and I'm pretty sure Chloe picked out the larva herself. :)

So what else happened this month? I mentioned field trips and we did go to a strawberry farm, Beartree Park, and Chungcheongbuk-do Forest Science Museum (to be seen in a later post). We got to go to the Cheongju Art Festival and see the blooming cherry blossoms downtown, and lots of little side trips. We also went on a Saturday trip to Seoul (4/27) this past weekend too. All in all, I'd say it's been a pretty good month.

That said, we just finished up our day earlier today with an open class. Our director moved around our rooms, and all the rooms really, the night beforehand so things were kind of off. An offering of rice cakes dusted with some sort of powdery substance (like before our Everland field trip) was placed in each of the rooms today too, and we ate them later for snack. For open class parents and prospective parents are invited to come watch class in action. I had three parents and one grandparent in my class and Zach had 6 or 7 parents in his room today. Fortunately, things went well for the hour, then it was back to normal business. Open classes can be kind of nerve wracking just because of parents sitting around in your classroom with various shades of bored on their faces. At least we were told that we have tomorrow, May 1st, off work. It's apparently Labor Day here so that means our school isn't open. I am okay with that! Sadly, Zach still has to go in and work at his other school in the afternoon, but he's making pretty good money from it.

We've also been busy this month due to preparing the kids for some sort of English speaking competition in Seoul at the end of May. That means me tweaking the things she printed out by retyping them and saving them and changing the language to make it easier. The younger kids are supposed to be presenting for a minute and a half while the older ones are supposed to be doing 2 minute speeches. Today I did additional speeches for two more kids wherein I found brief write ups online and tweaked them to meet my needs. Ellena is now doing a presentation on hanboks and Michael is doing one on housing/living in Korea historically to now. Go me. Now, she initially said this would be a Sunday trip to Soeul for this thing, but then she changed the date (we think?) and maybe it's just an in house thing? We just aren't really sure, like many things.

In other news, my class and I made paper snails this week. Aren't we cute?

Watch out! They're coming for you! Hopefully I update with a new post before these snails make it to you.

Beartree Park

I'm behind, I'm behind! I forgot to post about our field trip to Beartree Park on April 9th which was a truly wonderful place to visit. Beartree Park is located near Yeongi which is to the West of Cheongju. The park was a private arboretum for many years, apparently, but it recently opened to the public in 2009. According to our director the owner is quite old now, but he's grown quite the legacy with this park. It's gorgeous. I only wish that we had been able to see more of it and that we could have made it when it was even more lush and green.

Here's a handy dandy map of Beartree Park. It's pretty big though and we didn't get to see nearly as much as I would have liked. It was a bit breezy and cool though too.

This bus was parked right outside of the park. The signage made me laugh a little. 

Flags in the parking lot near the entrance of the park.

This is the first thing you see at the entrance to the park after you walk inside the gates. The trees are lovely and there are petrified pieces of wood everywhere. Pretty neat.

But then you take a left and you see loveliness! The pansies were definitely enjoying the nice, cool weather. In the picture above there is also a pond straight ahead. 

Who doesn't love pansies? They were one of few things in bloom during our visit.

Here is the aforementioned pond. It was lovely and at first glance I saw a few koi, but not many. Once you approach the edge, however, they were everywhere. They also like to gather near the bridge because you can purchase food and feed them when the weather gets warmer and koi certainly like food.

After dropping of everyone's backpacks we started our walk toward the more animal oriented part of the park. This scenic view was along the way.

Kimchi! We gathered around this bear statue for a group picture. The bear statue is rather anatomically correct, I might add. From left to right: Daniel 2, Chloe, Sarah, Jun (in teal in front), Julia, John, Tomas, Evelyn, Michael, Brian, and James. 

Hey, you can't say I didn't warn you. 

Onward, we continued our trek! To wherever we were going. Our director likes to tell us to go somewhere, but she doesn't tell us where to go or where we're going. So we walk and then she finally takes over and we follow like meek little foreigners. It makes things easier for everyone.

Finally, all the little sets of legs and 4 pairs of big ones, make it to our goal. We have found the small animal sanctuary! 

Why yes, those are baby bears. Aren't they too cute?

There were also a variety of birds, the above guinea pigs (why guinea pigs, Korea? I don't understand), rabbits, some dogs (including a beagle), some cats, and probably a few things I'm forgetting.

We also passed by this lovely fellow on the way to our next location. He was so brilliant.

Veering away from the array of animals we passed some reindeer, this pond, and more trees. 

Beartree Park has some fantastic views. 

Up near the top there is a small tower where you can go up and observe. Korea really is beautiful with all the mountains.  I'm sure it's even more gorgeous when things are green.

After a little chaos with kids running down the path all willy nilly, our director reigned them in and had them make a line to go back down the hill. We passed some ajummas and one of them decided to join the train of children not only walking, but saying "chi chi po po, chi chi po po" which is the Korean version of "chugga chugga choo choo" that we would do. Super cute. I also love the expression on the ajumma's face.

Hey, did you know that the Korean sound for teeth brushing is "chica chica"? The more you know. :)

Finally we got to the very bear part of the park. It was sad to see so many bears with so little space. You could purchase walnut cakes (호두과자) to throw to the bears which were very eager for a snack. 

I caught this bear mid-catch! You go bear, you got the skills. 

Oh hey, I bet you've never seen one of these before. Or recognize that logo. 

Finally, it was time for a lunch of kimbap and a variety of snacks. We returned to where the backpacks were and ate, then the kids had a quick race or two before we went back to the van to head to school. They're off! Even Chloe is mid jump in the picture.

And here they come! Zach joined the second race and everyone enjoyed it. John, the little guy in front won. He may be small, but he sure is fast!

Go Zach teacher! Go Chef (commonly called "chepu") teacher!

Chef teacher and the littlest of little people. Two of my favorite kiddos, Sarah and Jun.

We found... koi! We made a final visit to the pond before heading back to the school. 

Here we kept feet on the bridge and kiddos out of the water. But not before Evelyn dropped her face mask next to the bridge and almost into the water. 

Finally, it was time to head back to the school. Everyone was worn out and some of the kids fell asleep. Then it was class as usual. All in all, a good day at Beartree Park. These spring fieldtrips are pretty fun. We even went on another one which I will post about once the school pictures are up for me to add to my own albums. April birthday party post is to come as well!

Lets learn about stuff through ESL books

So at one of the schools I teach they use small story books to help teach the kids English.  They are pretty up to date, and are pretty interesting to read.  I find myself grabbing them and paging through them when I have a few minutes between classes, and always end up laughing at one thing or another.  The books themselves are only a few pages long, probably around 20 pages maximum, filled with illustrations or sometimes stock photos.  Either way they are entertaining and I thought to myself.  Why I do believe I've found a gimmick for the blog!

Now I would like to stress that I am not the creator of these images, and that showing the pictures from the books are for entertainment purposes only.  All of the pictures belong to the English Vine Corporation.

It is like starting into the gaping abyss that is my heart.  I would just like to say how much I adore pride parade Bowser there.  Though I don't remember a big pink horn on his face.  Just look at those stubby little arms.  I also like how blue Mario has what I believe to be a Y on his hat.  He shall now be known as Yario.

Look at the face on that star, that dude knows the score.  This is the gallery of children with improbable hair.  I mean serious we have red headed M haired girl, and there is a boy in a purple shirt who looks like a dog is laying on his head wagging its tail.  Heart shirt kid's arms confuse me even if they are correct, I keep thinking they should be switched.  The kid in the orange shirt looks like he has broken his leg.  Seriously though, that star is probably going to murder them all.

Its so beautiful.

I knows its a Japanese thing but I still don't get the whole snot bubble nose thing.  That is gross yo.

That green haired kids mouth freak me out, how is he able to grin that wide?  Did someone cut his cheeks like the Joker?  Oh god green hair?  You might wanna call Christian Bale kids.  Just don't let him show you his magic trick.

Mario is wearing brown Yoshi's skin.  I haven't seen many brown frogs, so perhaps it is a toad suit?  Either way it looks like he can unzip the crotch.  Creepy.

My Korean children all call gorillas King Kong.  So perhaps he is Donkey King Kong?  That or a confused and poorly spellchecked racist ape.

I will update the blog with more amazing books that I read for my other class as time goes on.  Some are boring but others are absolutely fantastic, and I will share them with you.  I do it for the love.

Sakura Spring in South Korea!

We had the pleasure of seeing one of the more beautiful natural events on this side of the world this weekend. It's sakura season (cherry blossoms) and they bloom for a short window of time which is about a week before they blow away or rainfall gets to them first. The Japanese sakura are very popular and well known, but these beautiful trees also bloom here in South Korea!

A special thing about this is that Cheongju also held its 10th annual Art Festival downtown by the river, which just so happens to be a big place to see all the trees in bloom. So not only were there tons of people out and about to take pictures with the scenery, but the art festival meant lots of families and art students out as well. It really was a lovely weekend and we had an awesome time. It's a special thing to see the trees in bloom in part of the world where they're such a beloved event.

First things first, after stopping at the usual stores in Shinae (Anipop and Artbox) we had to go get lunch at Rice Story. Rice Story is delicious and we have a tendency to get it to go when it's nice out and go eat by the river and have a sort-of picnic. Zach got the red curry and I got kimchi rice. Delicious!

I figured it would be fairly busy down by the river because of the sakura blooms, but what I wasn't anticipating was a huge crowd due to the 10th annual art festival in Cheongju. I'm glad we got to see it though, it was pretty neat. Lots of kids activities and some entertainment. Lots of artists too, of course.

This was pretty neat. There is apparently a local college that has some sort of silkworm program and they help educate people about silk and silkworms. There is apparently a silk museum somewhere in Korea too. I picked up a cool pamphlet with pictures, but I can't read it. At least it looks neat.

These fellows were very cool. The kids were getting a little rowdy and pestering them to get a reaction out of them, but they were very patient. Pretty impressive. You can't see it, but the man on the right has a sword.

It was a lovely day for being out. So many people though!

We walked by some live music by some young guys. They were pretty good.

We walked up toward the road and the line of cherry blossoms and saw lots of artists at work. These were particularly vibrant.

I also spotted someone with their mind on the sakura. Lovely art!

Because I insisted that we walk toward the Buddhist temple, we happened upon a festival going on there too. It was a good decision! We walked in initially and had people directing us toward the food stands (despite just eating lunch) since the whole thing was free. It was neat with live music, balloon sculpting, lotus lantern making, cotton candy, tea sampling, and various other things. 

I made a lotus out of a cup, paper, and rice paste/glue. It was fun and easy and now I have a fun little souvenir to take home. You can see more complete versions than the one in my hand further back.

I mentioned live music, here there were drummers! There were also ladies that came out to sing in hanboks too. They were all pretty amazing. 

These ladies were stunning. You can see a video I posted on Facebook using this link. Click to change the video to HD for better quality. :)

I like collecting fun and unique things and Korea has been fun for me in that aspect. I spent a good amount of time looking at the bracelets and things on a small table near the temple and the lady was very helpful. In the end I got two very beautiful bracelets and Zach got a strand of prayer beads. The lady was so helpful and slightly after we stepped away she took this picture of us. There is also a balloon dog in my hand that a man rescued and turned into a "poodle" for me. Everyone was so very sweet.

We finally decided to continue our trek and found tons of people taking pictures in front of the cherry trees. The picture above is very Korean to me and I thought it was kind of cute. We did the same and I speculated while all this was going on about why the do it the way that they do. By that I mean that most people had cell phones in hand and despite the ability to ask one of the many, many people walking around if they could take a picture of them or their group, they decided to take "selfies" or photos of themselves. 

As another note, as unpleasant as it was, there was a man throwing up down near the line of bushes while we were people watching. He was dressed nicely and someone (presumably a friend) was hitting him on the back while this was happening. Seems like someone spoiled their sakura viewing with too much soju! A guy even snuck up with his cell phone (what seemed like a stranger) and snapped a photo. It was... interesting.

This was definitely a worthwhile venture, enjoying the lovely weather and sakura in bloom!