Chungcheongbuk-do Science Forest Museum and Hagwon Ramblings

I've been kind of lax with updating lately, dealing with some current fun here at our school. So I figured I should probably update with a field trip we took in April to a nature preserve/museum/hiking hub here in Chungcheongbuk-do. It was a fun day, though we ran into a little bit of rain during our lunch/snack. More on that one later. It was a neat trip though, I just wished that we had gotten to see more and that the things in the museum were understandable to us.

The reason I say that we're dealing with some things lately is because as always, our director has something up her sleeve that we don't really agree with and/or like. By that I mean that she informed us that she wants us to teach a Saturday class for an hour for 4 weeks. At least, that was the first time she brought it up. The following time when we went to tell her that no, we were not going to be doing this, we were informed that this would actually be a 6 week venture with an hour class from 10 to 11am and that we would be getting paid 20,000 won for it. Additionally, she's also bad at being a boss, I'll just put it that way. Instead of asking me initially, she just kind of presented it expecting me to probably say "Okaaaay!" because I should somehow feel obligated because she's my boss and elder. Then when we spoke to her that second time, she tried to bring out the emotional tactics, that we needed to help her before we go back to America.

Well, let me be the first to say that this is not happening. Sure contracts will say that you may have to attend the occasional weekend event without being paid for it and that's okay. This, however, is not okay. Yes, per our contract, the 20,000 won per hour of overtime is correct, but with her history there is no way it's happening. Some hagwon directors can and will try to squeeze every last thing they can out of you and this is just another case of it. Zach is also working at another school and is getting paid overtime for it. In my case though, I haven't seen a cent of overtime since we arrived and let me just say that I have been denied a lot of overtime.

Anyway, without further delay or excessive discussion, here are some pictures from the (now long ago) field trip!

Psssh, we don't need no stinkin' car safety. No seat belts in use here. 

We have arrived! It was a little chilly, but a fun day.

Inside the welcome center there was a neat display of the whole area including the mountain range that stretched around that people can and do hike on.

Here's one of the entrances to the area we headed toward with the "tree museum".

The museum itself seemed interesting, a lot of natural history type things. Our director would sometimes stop and have the children read the displays in Korean which was kind of neat. There was that one time where she had me say photosynthesis for her and the kids to attempt to pronounce. 

Things I can read! This was actually really neat because it showed the mountain ranges of Korea.

This was neat, I think it even had some fancy speakers with spoken information along with it. I'm liking the won symbol on top of the building.

An area with flora and fauna, neat!

These folks were kind of creepy though. Especially the eyes.

There were petrified tree cross sections galore in one area. They were really fascinating.

I thought this was kind of cute on account of the heart shape.

Large petrified tree trunks!

Snack time, a time we will be very familiar with in the upcoming months.

There were a handful of nuns that gathered to take pictures around these characters and I went over to take a picture of the group so they could all be in the picture. My kind deed of the day. :)  I think these characters are maybe a regional thing? Cheongju has their own logo mascot things and I think these characters are for Chungcheongbuk-do? Don't quote me on that though.

The field trip was fun though, we got sprinkled on a little during snack time and us 4 adults had to hold a tarp over the kids head for a while until it passed. Then we headed back to the school, had lunch and continued with the rest of the day. Since there have been several field trips since then I'll have to play catch up and give a quick recap of our roaming adventures!

Zach takes "A Walk in the Woods" Please don't sue me Bill Bryson I love your books.

Yay hiking

So this week the kindergartners and I went on a field trip, oh and what a field trip it was.  We drove about 10 minutes to a small hiking trail located up the road from the school.  Excitement abound.  To be honest though it was a fun field trip, however due to a health related issue Amanda did not accompany us on this trip to a non-field.

Here we are as we begin our climb

We began our slow climb up a very small mountain pretty well, with the exception if Daniel and Tomas everyone stayed in line very well and didn't run screaming into the woods.  The director had the smallest child Jun with her so I didn't have to worry about him running off.  Since he is like 4 years old and still scared  of me if I had to take care of him it probably would have not been special.  The trail we climbed was a very leisurely trail, populated mostly by older woman and men going out for a random days walk.

As you can see the trail is very well maintained, and has wooden stairs and hand rails most of the way in the even vaguely steep areas.  While I won't exactly call this real climbing but it is a nice walk for someone getting away from the hustle and the bustle of the city.  It was actually very quiet up on the mountain, you wouldn't think it was completely surrounded by urban development less than a mile away.

The city off in the distance

We reached the summit of the tiny mountain, only to be greeted to a small waiting area with workout equipment and a watch tower which had a elderly park ranger inside it.

A better view of the summit area

After we reached the summit the children dropped off their backpacks and we went down one of the three paths that lead to the summit.  In a different direction than the one we came up of course.  We passed by a large work out area off the side of the trail where a bunch of older women and men were working out.  That is actually one of the nicest things about Korea, they have outdoor exercise equipment pretty much everywhere.  This is especially good since obesity is becoming a bit of a problem in Korea, much like it is in America.

We walked for a while, and nothing really of note happened other then one of the little girls Evelyn falling down multiple times because she has the coordination of a drunken mantis.  

Something about frog sex maybe?

We stopped to take pictures now and again and the director started going faster and faster checking behind her that the children were actually with the group less and less.  This forced me to stay behind and try to shuffle the children along as she got further and further ahead.

All of the overlooks have razor wire surrounding them, I'm not sure why other than it may be unstable?

After we finally got the group back together and stopped at a nice little grove, the said "Ok go back!" then we proceeded to walk back to the summit.  With one very distinct difference from before of course.  She left Jun the 4 year old behind, with me.  Now I was forced to try to get the stragglers to catch up with the class and try to shuffle along a 4 year old who flips out whenever I try to pick him up to move him faster.

The cutest snake.

So about halfway back to the summit she up and disappears with half the class since my half simply can't keep up due to them being young, or in some cases crazy.  Luckily it was a straight path, but it took us a good 4 extra minutes to get there, and when we arrived the director just looks at me and asks me "what took so long" in her own English tone.

A lost old man, sad times

The children then had snacks and played around at the summit for about 20 minutes before we began our descent to the bus.  I spent most of the time trying to clean up the trash the kids continually threw on the ground and saving the life of bugs they were trying to murder needlessly (The only moral bug slaying is when I do it you see).  Then after snack we headed back to the school, only to stop for ice cream on the way.  Right in time for lunch, which none of the kids ate because they had just had ice cream, and a snack less than an hour before.  Good planning there.

All in all it was a pretty fun trip, but I wish it hadn't just been me and the director, though it must have been nice for Manda to get those few precious moments to herself since she doesn't get the time normally.  I don't know where the next trip will be but it will probably be Manda writing about it.

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!