캠프 첫 주 First Week of Camp and Busan, 부산

캠프 첫 주 First Week of Camp and Busan, 부산

Ciao Bella,

Monday night was the first day of official camp adventure. We have the same basic morning schedule each day, except field trip days on Thursday. Blitz, small group time, club time, all camp activity, and lunch make up the morning then Monday and Friday are rotating activities, Tuesday is swimming and Wednesday is bowling. Each day we end camp with snack and closing, when we sing more relaxing songs to calm the kids down before their parents pick them up. We begin at nine o’clock with all camp blitz on the patio, blitz is singing songs to get the kids ready for a fun filled day. After singing and introducing ourselves we broke into our first small groups, the kinders all sat in a circle and we said our names and our favorite candy. They are too cute, sixteen little adorable faces and some with evil personalities. I was pretty concerned when I found out I was in the kinder room, it has a bad rep, but they just need a little structure and discipline and their behavior has already been improving.

The club I was in charge of this week for space week was science camp. On Monday we talked about the sun and played electricity and telephone, on Tuesday we made paper airplane rocket ships and had a contest to see who could throw their closest to the “moon,” on Wednesday we made mobiles of the planets and stars, and on Friday we presented what we had learned that week to the rest of the center. Lunch time is also always very interesting. We get to eat with the kids every day, yay free food, but its family style dinning so you have to walk around to each table to serve them, boo taking forever. The food is pretty good and I am learning to eat fast standing up after I serve the kids but before anyone needs seconds. Last summer I never had the chance to work with kindergarteners because they were still at the child development centers but here they put them in the same building. It’s pretty cute that someone is always holding my hand or sitting on my lap, or falling asleep on me during closing. Which is pretty common, they don’t have nap time anymore so around three thirty down they go as we are sitting in a circle singing. There is one little girl in particular, Keyona, who really struggles with following directions and she was sitting up in the circle and kept falling asleep and bobbing down and then waking up and bobbing down and waking up, it was pretty funny.

On Thursday we took the kids on our first field trip. It went a lot better than I expected. We departed for wobang world, and amusement park, early that morning. Devin is normally the one who helps me with the kinders when he isn’t teaching swim lessons so we sat with the kinders behind us on the bus and spent the whole bus ride handing out coloring books and toys. These buses have complicated seat belts which is nice because they are stuck in their seats. Xavier and Andre were partnered to be walking buddies and weren’t very happy about it, in the first fifteen minutes of the bus ride they fought, cried, then fell asleep on each other. The park was a lot of fun, nothing like the danger zones we went to in Italy. The kinders are pretty height limited so we kept it to merry-go-round, kiddy rides, and the log flume. The log flume was a lot of fun but you really had to hold these little kids down so they wouldn’t fly out. After breaking for lunch we found a ball room and played for over an hour. It was a room with thousands of soft balls all over the floor and an upper balcony that looked over the ground. There were a ton of different cannons that you put the soft balls in and other shooting things. They had ball bags that you could fill then put them on a pulley system and crank them to the top of the upper balcony. Devin was a slave driver and had all the kids down filling bags up for him then sending them to him so he could shoot down at them. It really took up a lot of time, thank goodness. On the bus ride home everyone passed out on their partner and Devin and I battled it out in the yellow game, there are a million pink cars here.
So all in all camp was pretty fun this week, exhausting but fun. We were all ready for a break come Friday evening around four thirty so we hustled back to the hotel to pack up our bags for Busan. We taxied to the train station and bought five tickets on the train. The train was an hour long and we were able to sit family style with a table between us and we traveled through gorgeous mountains. We arrived in Busan around eight thirty and exited the train station to find a peace rally and live concert. We walked in the direction that we thought was the subway station, and eventually found it. Our hostel directions were to take the subway get off at exit seven, walk to the family mart, go under a tunnel, and we would be there. Oh brother was it more complicated. We bought our tickets and exited correctly then we were greeted by a nice Korean woman who spoke English and she offered to help us, Devin and James were drooling and claiming her as their future wife. She led us out of the tunnel and we walked in the direction she pointed. She was wrong. After passing three family marts and finding no tunnels we called the hostel and asked for directions. She told us to walk to the 42st hotel and she would pick us up there. This lovely Korean lady picked us up and walked us across the street to the mini mart and under a tunnel, we were so close. We stayed at blue backpacker’s hostel in a dorm for six people, three bunk beds, and a private bathroom. We changed and went out for the evening James, the bar connoisseur leading the way. We stopped in our first bar and much to Devin’s despair James and Jesa ordered French fries and tater tots. NOT KOREAN FOOD! They did give us Korean bar food though, which instead of pretzels and peanuts consists of weird popcorn and fish scales, no lie! After hanging out and chit chatting for awhile we decided it was time to move on and found and underground bar called M. We sat at the bar where they displayed every known type of alcohol and James, the bartender, spent the evening teaching me anything and everything about booze. After M we decided to turn in for the night and walked back to the hostel. James, Kristin, and Devin stopped at a family mart to each get a different beer then we spent the evening sitting in our hostel laughing and chatting till Jesa yelled at us to go to bed.

Saturday morning we decided we would wake up around eight and start the day, however, Jesa and I were up and ready to go by six thirty. We were up on the top bunks and I crawled over to her bunk and we were chatting and laughing until both boys got out of their beds to smack us with their pillows and demand we shut up. We headed down to the common room to use the internet and plan our day. When eight finally did roll around certain people were not happy to be getting up, but they did and we went up on the roof to enjoy our free breakfast of toast and hot chocolate. It was raining, though I assured everyone it would stop. After breakfast we packed up and headed out, our first stop Haundae beach. We jumped on the subway and began our thirty minute ride. It had stopped raining temporarily so we threw our stuff on the beach and dove into the east sea. Koreans don’t wear bathing suits here; they wear wet suits or clothes so we stuck out a little. We swam next to a surf contest and enjoyed jumping over waves and riding them in. The rain started to pick up again and people were starting to get cold so we decided to head in for some grub. We packed up, found interesting ways to change out of our swim suits and headed to an overhanging roof to plot our next moves. There aren’t really a ton of indoor activities to do in Busan so we stood around for about ten minutes eating snacks and peanut butter sandwiches until I made everyone walk to the distant lighthouse declaring they wouldn’t melt. Four unhappy counselors followed and purchased rain gear at a local stand. (we were already soaked so why they bought it I am unsure) we walked and walked and walked towards the lighthouse right on the shore. We were walking around some of the coolest rocks I have ever seen. We made it to the lighthouse and were engulfed in a torrential down pour. Luckily there was a gazebo up the hill so we hung out and ate more sandwiches for a while. After sitting four about forty five minutes taking in the scenery etc Devin declared that we should just go swim in the rain since we were all drenched anyway and there was nothing better to do. So we hiked back down to the beach, where the rain had worsened and shoved all our stuff under James’ umbrella and dove into the ocean. The Korean word for thank you is Kamsahamnida which Devin and James thinks sounds like Como se dice (which in Spanish means how do you say..) so they are yelling como se dice all the time. They say it so often that I have accidently told kind Koreans como se dice in attempt to thank them more than once. But anyway, it became our large wave catch phrase, we saw a big one rolling in and Devin would shout como se dice and we would attempt to body surf in. This went on for about an hour and a half until freezing we decided to head back to the hostel, change, and go out for the night. The same thirty minute subway ride is much more unpleasant when you are drenched. We made it back to the hostel and took rotating quick showers to get the sand off. We ended up taking naps and hanging out until about seven when we finally decided to head out for the evening. It was still raining a lot but the hostel let us borrow three umbrellas so we were off. Jesa and James were in charge of picking dinner, (I only plan daytime activities) so naturally we ended up walking into three restaurants and walking around for an hour before one angry James Gulley demanded she make a decision. We settled on a soupy restaurant where we each enjoyed a bowl of pork and rice soup, with other questionable floaters. They gave us plates of vegetables, garlic, spices, and baby shrimp for flavor. (Jesa and I added none.) James, again, ate a pepper and cried, when will he learn. After dinner James wanted to head back to the first bar we went to the night before and watch the Korean world cup soccer game that started at eleven. We hung out for a long time just talking and eating the weird popcorn. James made friends with the bar owners son and they chatted it up at the bar for a long time. About half-way through our stay there a very drunk, and possibly pregnant, Korean woman walked in with her “not boyfriend” and sat at the table behind us. She first told Devin he was very handsome and kissed his hand and demanded he kiss hers. Then about fifteen minutes later when James rejoined us she came over with chop sticks full of food and wanted to feed him, this whole time the “not boyfriend” is sitting at their table apologizing. This lady was really laying it on thick with James and it looked like she was trying to kiss him. After repeatedly telling him it probably wasn’t a good idea, aka mad girlfriend, she fed him and left. Kristin got the whole thing on tape and you can hear Devin and me in the background telling him no while Kristin egged her on. So eventually Jesa grew weary and I walked with her back to our hostel to turn in for the night around 1145. I warned everyone before we left we were waking up at eight am the next day and complaining was forbidden. (they will get used to it eventually) Jesa and I crashed and were attacked later that evening when they returned with pillows. We woke up right at eight the next day and after rolling James out of bed we were off to the roof to enjoy our toast and hot chocolate! The rain had died down so I drank my hot coco overlooking the city! We decided that our first stop of the day would be the famous Busan fish market. It did not disappoint. I wish you could smell it, gag! We subwayed to the harbor and found a million stalls of any sea creature you could ever imagine! Fish I have never seen before stared back at me alive through glass tanks and octopuses were thrown out on the ground. After walking around outside for a while we found the indoor market, now that was cool! Stalls and stalls of live fish splaying water out of their tanks and crazy shelled fish stuck to the side of the glass. We walked out to the harbor and watched the seagulls and huge boats. We decided to keep walking and happened across a lotte department store, big deal here, and noticed they had a free observation tower on the top floor. We rode the escalators up to the twelfth floor, I still vote elevators would have been more logical. The deck was gorgeous and one half over looked the harbor and the other half overlooked the city. After taking a million pictures we decided to try our luck at a tour boat that goes all around the many small islands off the coast. Unfortunately after a long search and eventually finding it all ferries were cancelled due to the weather, it wasn’t even raining yet. We were close to the train station so we just decided to head back to Daegu early. Jesa and I were hoping to catch the Lutheran service that apparently at four thirty, not five like the sheet said, so we ended up sitting outside the chapel for two hours talking about religion and praying on our own. That night we all hung out and watched a movie and prepared for camp the next day!

I hope everyone’s summer is going swimmingly and I hope to hear about what you’re up to too!

Rain, rain go away,

Elizabeth