Fall Field Day

           As you may have noticed. I haven’t been blogging as consistently lately. A lot of my time is taken up by work (typically from 9am-7pm, sometimes with an hour-long break in the middle). I’ve also been busier lately outside of work, which is a good thing. I meet up with both Moon and Jackie most weekends, and have been spending time with some of the other teachers from my school.

Last week all of the “Native teachers” went over to one of the Korean-teachers houses, Sabina, and we made dinner. I have also been frequenting Now Bar (the sign says “Now!! Bar”), the expat bar in Yeongtong, which I mentioned before. It’s a great way to meet other foreigners and English-speaking Koreans who live nearby. I’ve been going most Friday nights.

            Anyway, on to the point of this blog post…Fall Field Day. This was an event that we had at school with the kindergarteners a couple of weeks ago. The teachers all showed up at 8:30 in the designated uniform of an EOS shirt, jeans, and a backpack (Amanda and I did some last-minute backpack shopping the night before since neither of us had one here. I found one I like at Suwon station for only 10,000 won).

The teachers were driven to a park in one of the EOS busses, were we met the kids (also bussed). Most of them were dressed in their cute little PE uniforms (black sweat-suits with a Burberry-like pattern on the sides). The day consisted of game-playing and picnic-ing, all while many pictures were taken (as always are on event days), so that the school could show the students’ parents and prospective parents how much fun the kids were having with their native English-speaking teachers.

            There was a foot race, a race where the kids and teachers pushed a huge ball, tug-of-war, etc. On one of the rounds of tug-of-war, just the teachers played (ouch my hands). Here is a picture that Amanda took of the Salmon girls and I:

Me, Julia, Lucy, and Chris

Afterwards we sat on a mat with the kids and ate snacks. The school provided kimbap (kind of like a sushi-roll with cooked fish), and each of the kids brought something to share. I brought rice-crispy treats, which I thought the kids would like, but they didn’t seem to, “teacher no”. We were also provided with a fair amount of coffee throughout the day. Which was very necessary.

            Here are some pictures I took on my phone of the picnic:

 Julia

 Sophia

Sonic 

Daniel 

 Kimbap, etc.

            All in all the day was pretty fun, even though we had to be pretty on-it to keep the kids under control. Much of it just seemed pretty hilarious/silly to me, as usual. Like the warm-up dance that they had all the kids do while singing a song that sounds like “choo-choo-cha-cha-choo-choo-cha-cha.” It was a nice day and great to be outside, playing games and eating snacks. Fall is the nicest time of year in Korea, with cool, clear air and red and yellow leaves.

I’m experiencing real seasons for the first time in my life. A little different than Santa Barbara, where the temperature simply drops a few degrees and sometimes it gets foggy. I am getting pretty nervous for winter, though. It’s supposed to be a particularly cold one. There will be snow and Siberian winds (literally).

            Side-note: I have a Korean phone now. It’s an LG smart-phone that I got for free with a yearlong contract (I pay monthly). It’s awesome, puts the iphone to shame. I love it. Has great apps, is easy to use, and takes really good pictures for a phone. As they say, “LG is about making life good.”