몰몬교이 세상을 구한다

The life of a camp counselor is tiring yet rewarding. This week in camp was ocean week and children go bananas for anything that can be related to spongebob. That’s how my kids tell time, “Miss Smartie how many spongebob episodes till we go to the pool?” each being fifteen minutes I respond accordingly. My club this week is Fishy Suspicion Science club, I made up the title all by myself, and I would say it has been fairly successful. I have twenty kids in my club, and I am generally alone, so that can present a slight problem. Like I mentioned last week our numbers skyrocketed and they have yet to fall back. Monday was by far the worst camp day I have ever experience, behavior related. My group of 19 small grouper refused to follow any directions, clean up, listen, it was awful. After losing my voice and having spent a large part of the day lecturing and yelling, it was a relief for Mr. Taffy to come in from swim lesson and take over the yelling. In club we learned about coral reefs and I created a long paint by numbers on construction paper and watched them fight over painting it. That afternoon in rotating activities I was in charge of making goo, worst decision ever. They have made it before in small group and it was my turn, unfortunately they lost the recipe so I was stuck experimenting and figuring out the correct combination. The first two groups were a messy failure, glue and water everywhere on the table and by group three it was turning out a little better. Needless to say I was ready to peace out by 4:30 and happy to collapse on my hotel bed.

Tuesday and Wednesday were fairly uneventful, swimming and bowling. On Wednesday in clubs we created paper maché turtle eggs by covering water balloon balloons. On Wednesday we used items from around the room to create turtle shell nest to try to protect them from attacking birds. That night Jesa, James, and I went to Sosong lake to rent swan paddle boats and float around. Jesa and James did the paddling and I did the sleeping in the back. The lake wasn’t too big so we only paddled around for about an hour before heading back.

Thursday’s field trip day was crazy. We took the kids to Busan aquarium with about fifty thousand other Koreans. After a two hour bus ride of trying to keep kids happy and not wetting their pants or throwing up it was frustrating to see how many people were there that we had to keep our kids separate from. It was pretty fun though to watch the kids get excited about the fish, I generally brought up the back end holding hands with Kalisha and Keyona and I would read the plaques to them and they would repeat all the fish names. We went to a 3-D movie that moved; basically it was rows of chairs on a platform that shook as we watched parts of happy feet in Korean. That night we got pizza in James room and enjoyed watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Friday was a long day, the longest camp day I have ever endured. The kids were high on something and completely crazy. We had a rough morning and when Mr. Taffy came into a silent room at lunch his first words were what have you kids done to Miss Smartie. The air conditioning was broken so everyone was sweaty, crabby, and not following directions. In the afternoon we went over to the teen center where the air conditioning was fully blowing and we let the kids watch movies and play games. Kristine, our project coordinator, came down for one last site visit. We all went out to dinner around seven; Jesa and I just ordered rice so we could get Baskin Robbins after. After ice cream and a little down town perusing we were joined by Amanda, Emily, and two other Yongson girls who were staying with us Friday night on their way down to Busan. We took them to Dr. Fish where they got their dead skin eaten and we hung out talking. We headed back to our rooms and stayed up talking and watching television.

Saturday we woke up early and met up in the lobby at seven o’clock sharp. We walked to the subway station in the blazing, morning heat. After working up a good sweat on the fifteen minute walk we bought our 1,100 Won subway ticket and headed to Seobu station where Mr. Kim had told us there would be a direct bus to Jiri-san national park, the mother of all Korean national parks. Unfortunately he is a dirty liar and this imaginary bus was nowhere to be found. At this point James was getting a little antsy, he does not like to stray from the plan at all and wing it, as Devin and I were hustling to find a solution. We decided to taxi over to DongDaegu train station where there are two bus terminals and try our luck there, failure again. The decision was made to travel to Daejeon, a two hour bus ride, and then bus to a different national park that was close by. We boarded and took an uncomfortable nap in the very back row of the bus. Daejeon is the sixth largest city in South Korea, but it appeared larger. The bus terminal was under construction so we were dropped off in a gas station. This really threw us off and we wandered the streets, stopping in the Korean Tourist Hotel which was no help and several other establishments, I stepped into a family mart and asked the lovely lady behind the cash register for help. She pulled out a big bus guide and told us to take bus number 105 for twelve stops then transfer to bus 107. This sounded awfully complicated so we decided to wander a little further up the road first where our prayers were answered with a God-send. Mormons. I spotted them in their button up short sleeve shirt, pants, belts, black shoes, nametags, side backs, and book of Mormon under their arm. They approached us with a friendly greeting and started talking to us about where we were from, what we were doing, if we had found Jesus, I felt like I was back in the states. They were on their two year mission in Korea, loving it, before they went back to school in Utah for college. They walked us down the street to the hidden bus station then when there weren’t any buses, they put us in a cab to bus number 107 so we could get on without getting lost on 105. When Elder Anderson told us we would have to take the city buses, I responded oh ya the 105 to the 107 and he was shocked and believed me to be a bus specialist when really it was all from the kind woman in the family mart. It was hard to part with our new Mormon friends, Elder Anderson gave his card to Jesa to catch up sometime. As we got in the taxi and headed off Devin asked who those Jews were and we all had a good chuckle at his stupidity. We got on bus 107 and endured the hour ride to Gyeryong-san National park. We arrived around one and immediately set off in search of the trail. It was a glorious day, it was a little cloudy and cool, probably around 80, but don’t worry I still sweated through my shirt and backpack. The trail was about 4 km to the peak and once again we were walking on boulder stairs and a boulder trail, I don’t know if I could ever grow accustomed to their cruel steep inclines. The boys took off and Jesa and I enjoyed our leisurely pace. This was our first clear day of hiking where the mountains weren’t covered in mist and clouds so the views were absolutely breathtaking. We came to an observation deck about halfway up and got our first glimpse of the peaks and the rocky outcrops jutting above the trees. The rocks were fairly slick, lots of streams and such around, so the last km was a rough one. I slipped and smacked my camera against a rock, thankfully I had invested in lens protectors and only the cover shattered not the actual lens. Finally we made it to the top and nothing else mattered. It was very worth it. We took lots of pictures and looked over the ridge line that lead to the second peak, it was too late for us to hike it ourselves but it was something to look at and watch the other Koreas do. After an hour of time well wasted we decided to make our decent. My small feet led the hop down the slick mountain, I fell twice, but finally we were back at the bus stop around seven pm. After indulging in a grape Popsicle, probably the best Popsicle I have ever in my life tasted, we boarded the bus and found the KTX train station back to Daegu. We hung out in the station for about an hour, eating and turning into ice cubes sitting next to the huge air conditioner. We had a family car on the way back and we got into a ridiculous argument that left the fifty minute train ride back silent. That night James, Jesa, and I watched most of wedding crashers and were asleep around 11:15.

Sunday morning I woke up around 6:40 to go with James to the base club house. He had signed up to play golf at 7:26 with a group and was nervous to go alone. I walked him over and waited with him to T-off, he tried to explain the many rule of golf to me as we waited, no compredo still. I headed back to the hotel and got dressed for church and headed off to mass where I sat by my camper Jonathon and around a few other campers. After mass I hung out, took a nap waiting for Jesa to get back from church and James to finish golfing. James was in such a good mood after his great game that he took Jesa and me out for brunch, his treat at the Evergreen. It was delicious. After lunch we met up with Devin and the four of us headed out for a day of shopping. We went down town first and split up boys and girls, Jesa and I bought some typical Korean t-shirts and socks. Koreans are crazy about socks and they have crazy designs and are very cheap, I have purchased too many socks. We took the subway from down town to Seomun Market, the market I have visited twice previously. We split up and conquered the market. I got all my siblings their gifts and another purse for myself, whoops! I had some spare time after shopping to browse the food section and I found the live animal aisle. There are cages, and no cages, of chickens, ducks, rabbits, pheasants, and puppies! You would think you were in a pet store aisle not meat aisle, oh and in one freezer section there was a skinned dog head, I am getting closer to my dog eating goal. After the market we taxied back and Jesa and I stopped off at the bootleg DVD store before calling it a day, you can’t not go to Korea, where you get five illegal movies for 20,000 won, and not buy them, trust me! That night we watched clash of the titans, one of Jesa’s purchases and I was asleep by 9:30!

All in all I would call this weekend a success, I feel very comfortable here in Korea and I cannot believe how my time is ending so quickly! Hopefully my camp kids shape up so I am not constantly losing my voice, but I still know the last day will be a tearful one! I miss you and look forward to sending you a report next week about my final weekend vacation in Korea!!

All my new found Asian love,

Elizabeth