마지막 즐거운 주말

The hour glass is running out of sand as we enter our second to last week of camp. Monday was a rough day full of naughty kids. This week is Invitation to a World Celebration week and I am again in charge of science club. It’s kind of a geology club; we talked about continental drift and Pangaea and tried to fit the continents back together like they previously were. We played elbow tag outside and in rotating activities I made Fuze beads in the art room.

Tuesday in small group we learned all about the fifty states and colored the different states certain colors on the map. They behaved for about half the states, the western half of the country, then an exhausted Miss Smartie gave them free coloring. In club I brought in the bag of rocks I collected from Gyeongju beach and gave one rock to each kid. We had magnifying glasses and they had a piece of paper to draw and describe their rocks. When everyone was done we put all the rocks back in a pile and the test was to see if you could use your notes to find your rock. That afternoon I went swimming with the kinders and first graders and spent lots of water fun time with my favorite Kalisha. She is going to be hard to leave; she says she loves Miss Smartie about ever ten minutes. That night Jesa and I watched the Last Song and cried our eyes out together; it was a real bonding experience.

Wednesday was a wet day, we were in a typhoon advisory starting Tuesday night and it wasn’t supposed to stop till late Wednesday afternoon. James and I walked to work in literally drenching, cats and dogs, torrential down pour rain. We got to work and our socks, shoes, shorts, backpacks, and rain jackets were completely soaked through, and we got to stay in them all day. The problem with rainy days is that you can’t take the kids outside for all camp activities or to any schedule event aka swimming and bowling. So in small group we made four leaf clover lucky charm necklaces. In club we made dinosaurs out of felt and learned about different species. In outdoor activity time we did paint by numbers of different country flags. Then when we were supposed to be bowling and swimming we did rotating activities and I was in charge and Pictionary and made friendship bracelets. That night we had a going away party for our Korean intern Miss Moon who is leaving on Friday. We went to Mr. Ricks and Ms. Jeans apartment to eat dinner with a lot of the staff and their family. They have high active twin boys who are four and a daughter going into seventh grade. They were so cute, and you would think we would be sick of kids after playing with them all day but we could not resist the smiles of these two little kids. We ate a variety of dishes buffet style and enjoyed fruit smoothies. I overcame one of my top fears when the karaoke machine made its debut. Everyone was forced to sing a song, after much protesting I was forced off the coach and wannabe by the spice girls was selected for me. James gets very into his Karaoke and was dancing with the microphone. I think the highlight of the night, and a great end to a trip in Korea was when our centers cook, Mr. Ye, polished off a bottle of wine, no exaggeration he drank it all himself, he got up to the microphone and sang a lot of old nineties love songs really well. It was hysterical in his broken English/Korean accent it took all I had to not die of laughter. Most mornings he is slow getting out breakfast and sits in the kitchen with his head down hating life and hung over, as he was singing Mr. Rick told us that last week he went Karaoke-ing every night of the week. After making James and Jesa belt out Whitney Huston’s I will always love you and ending with a group effort All for one, I Swear, it was time to head home.

Thursday was field trip day. We were off to the Amethyst Caves down by Busan. It was a long two hour bus ride with a broken VCR but I rode with Sammy, the one who normally throws up but this time didn’t, and time went faster than expected. Sammy is a trouble maker and comes from a trouble childhood, he and his sister Samantha about a year ago found their bloody mother in the bathroom after she committed suicide and they have recently opened up a lot more about it. I feel so bad for these two kids; they will never have a normal childhood and have to carry that image of their mother forever. Sammy and I played with plastic animals until he fell asleep, he was adorable and he has just recently started smiling, laughing, and hugging us and I almost want to cry every time I see it. We finally arrived at the caves ate lunch and headed into the most dangerous spot to lose a kid, and the easiest. These caves were freezing cold and very full of Koreans. We went to an underground show first with three men and a young girl. They did acrobatic/flexibility tricks that blew every one’s mind. They had some inappropriate jokes and things that would explain why the show was underground in a cold cave but the kids just thought it was hysterical and watched wide eyed and mouth open. After the show we wandered around the caves for a while and finally headed out. I know I have mentioned before that there are just random amusement park rides everywhere but it still blows my mind. This place had about six rides and we took our kids on the carousal, mini Viking ship, and two other spin car things. After snack we loaded back on the bus and Sammy and I played games again until he fell asleep. That night Jesa and I made our last trip to the commissary and watched rent on T.V. singing along the whole time!

Friday we painted in small group and made volcanoes in club. We learned all about the formation of volcanoes and how they erupt, then we used the left over clay cooking club had made to build volcanoes and put baking soda and vinegar in them. The clay wasn’t very strong and vinegar got everywhere but the kids really liked it. After teaching kids science this week I think it is safe to say that teaching isn’t my calling. In the afternoon we played bingo in rotating activities and played the armadillo game. The armadillo game emerged when the boys, Judae and Sean, were playing with the five little plastic armadillos and Mr. Taffy hid them in really hard spots. Now if they are good during closing everyday Mr. Taffy hides them, tapes them to the ceiling and under tables, and they search for them after receiving one clue for each armadillo. They love the armadillo game and they have been behaving very well during closing. Friday night was very uneventful. Jesa, James, Devin and I hung out making travel plans, since the island that we had originally planned fell through when we realized the return ferry didn’t get back till Tuesday. We settled on heading to the west coast to Byeonsan Bando national park.

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early, 4:20, in order to catch our train at five thirty. Taxis don’t run on base till six so we had to walk off base and find a cab. Our first train was two hours long and I think I slept for a total of fifteen minutes. It is so hard to get comfortable in a straight up seat, especially when you are excited about all the day holds. After a thirty hour transfer we had another two hour train and arrived in Jeon ju at 10:30, the ride was beautiful and went through a ton of rice fields. You could look out on a huge field and see one Korean standing among his crops with a straw hat. Jeon ju is a typical college town with an art university; the boys were drooling over the young promising ladies and wondered how we had missed this place for so long. After taxi-ing to the express bus terminal we found the two hour bus to Byeonsan Bando and boarded. Jesa of course slept the whole way and I enjoyed more rice fields. As we approached the coast we saw long muddy wet beaches that stretched out about a eighth mile before reaching the ocean, we were possibly thinking of camping on the beach and started getting concerned about our slumber arrangements. Finally we got off the bus and found the national park office. We talked, well gestured and used one word phrases, to a ranger who gave us a Korean map and told us to get on a green bus to go to Gyeokpo beach. Oh I forgot to mention that it had been pouring rain all morning and some people were a little grumpy with the cloudy weather, luckily by the time we reached the coast it was just cloudy and the rain had stopped. After another fifteen minute bus ride we arrived in Gyeokpo and walked to the beach. It is a little run down sea side town, and I am pretty sure we were the only round eyed people there. We walked down to the beach and found another long muddy sandy section before reaching the water. We waded in a little and hunted sea shells for a while before moving onto the rock formations. These rocks were like flattened pancakes, cliffs on the shore, and then you could walk around on the barnacle covered rocks next to the cliffs. These rocks had a ton of little tide pools in them chalk a block full of crabs and fish and rocks and it was beautiful. The cliffs had water dripping off like a bunch of mini waterfalls. After taking lots of pictures of ocean and rock and harassing many a crab we headed up to find a camp site. I asked another ranger and he pointed down the road where we found many a Korean also geared up for a night of camping. Koreans know how to camp, they have huge tents complete with patio, outdoor mat rain covers. They also bring coolers full of regular meals and they all sit and eat with their chopsticks. We found a nice patch of grass in the middle of a large Korean huddle and settled in. We were pretty tired from being up late and we took about an hour rest lounging outside the tent and chatting. Around four thirty Devin, James, and I decided it was time to conquer the ocean and all the Koreans swimming in it. Jesa wasn’t feeling 100% so she stayed with the tent. One thing I still do not understand about these skinny skinny Koreans is why they all wear regular clothes instead of swim suits. No one wears bikinis or one piece, its polo’s and button down shirts in the water, constricting one would think. The waves were really blasting and the tide had come in to cover the whole beach and all the wonderful rocks we had just climbed on. We swam around for about an hour, Devin taught us how to make a gun sound underwater and we perfected our whale and seal noises. Devin and James kept doing handstands into the waves and the Korean lifeguards died laughing every time their white thighs were exposed. After swallowing more than my fair share of sea water, my short stature could not jump over the waves, we headed back to the tent to pick up a sleeping Jesa. We walked up to the lookout point next to the beach and watched the sun set on the ocean and the waves crash on the mermaid statue sitting on the rocks below us. It was a pretty picture perfect evening. After the sun disappeared behind the clouds and the moon made its debut we headed back to the tent for a little relaxation. We laid in the tent debating all things political, religious, and social and laughed and chatted and made fun of James Gulley. Eventually we headed back to the beach around ten where we discovered they were selling fireworks and James bought us sparklers and a small box of fireworks. The wind was really blowing so after about fifteen minutes of working with the lighters and trying to make a human shield we got the sparklers lit. We ran around down by the ocean and the boys took turns trying to pick us up and throw us in, luckily they were unsuccessful. The tide had gone back out and our mermaid from earlier was on top of rocks and away from the water so we climbed up to it and relaxed in the sea breeze. We lost James for a while as we were watching Koreans make a heart out of sparklers and gave us some for free. Finally we found him back at the tent and we decided to call it a night. We woke up the next morning to pouring rain; we packed up the tent and caught the 8:10 bus back to Jeon ju. We then found a bus back to Daegu and got home around 2:30, I didn’t get much sleep the night before it was hot and uncomfortable so I was fast asleep for both buses only to be informed that I missed our most beautiful bus ride ever, of course. We dropped our stuff off and headed back downtown to make our final purchases then walked to the market for one last visit and back to the train station so the boys could buy plastic soju bottles to pack in their carry on luggage. Sunday night we watched the Hangover and started some of our packing. It was a fantastic last weekend in South Korea full of laughter and a lot of “lasts.” I cannot believe I will be home and back in classes in less than a week. I am very sad to be leaving Korea, but very excited to return home to see everyone. I will hopefully send out one last email to share my last week of camp and let you know I made it back to Iowa safe and sound.

Kicking and screaming the whole way home!

Elizabeth