Summer Camp

In August, a couple of days before my week off for summer break, we had Summer Camp at our school. The kindergarten kids started on Thursday with a day full of playing games, watching a movie, and eating bbq for dinner. They also had a sleepover party which had them all excited for weeks in advance. Maria and I didn't end up spending the night as we had to be rested for the elementary school summer camp the following day. The kids normally don't get a chance to go all crazy at school, so they thoroughly enjoyed themselves those two days...ice cream before bedtime probably wasn't the best idea. :)

On Friday afternoon, the elementary kids came for their summer camp. Many schools have a week's worth of camp, but we managed to squeeze it all into one day. We started off with the kids going out to play. It was a hot day, so a lot of kids ran around with water guns and had a big water fight. We also had jump roping competitions, and a couple of the girls went hunting for cicadas.
For dinner we had bbq. Korean bbq is not like the typical American steak and potatoes meal. Bbq here is bite-sized barbecued pork that you wrap up in lettuce and eat in one bite with some spicy sauce (gochujang) and rice.
After dinner some of the kids put on a talent show. Three kids put on a drama, and a few of the others played instruments. One of the girls wanted to show her taekwando skills, but she needed a volunteer, and the boys were scared of beat up.
I taught the kids how to play hot potato (with music) and they all had a blast trying to get each other out.

It was a fun couple of days, but boy was I glad to have a week off after this. A couple of friends, Tracy and Vien, came to visit me from the states and we had a great time together...more on that in the next post.

Ocean trip

 I know it's been a while since I've last made an update on what's going on in my life here, so it's time to play catch-up. Summer has been pretty busy but I did get the chance to take off for a weekend in Jinju to visit Krista. Summer in S.Korea can get very hot and very humid, so we decided to take a little trip to Namildae beach. Many of the beaches in S.Korea tend to be extremely crowded, but this tiny little beach has seemed to escape much of the public eye. There was a sign on one of the buildings there that claimed that we were in Orange County...me thinks we're a bit far from southern California.

We enjoyed a little picnic and went swimming in the water. I missed having a buggie board, but since there are no waves there it'd be pointless to have one. What I found interesting is that almost everyone that got in the water had an inner tube. S.Korea is surrounded by water on three sides, but apparently there are many people that don't know how to swim or seem to have . Krista went for a little swim to the buoys and back, and people kept asking me if she was a competive swimmer. They were shocked when I told them that she wasn't, that she just swam for fun. We did end up joining the crowd using inner tubes and enjoyed some time just floating in the water. What's nice about the beaches here, is that you don't have to worry about bringing tubes or umbrellas with you. There are people that rent them out to you for the day. They also have publics bath houses, so no need to travel back all sandy and sticky.

Another thing that we found amusing were the "sun bathing" ladies. They were lying out in the sand fully clothed, covered up with towels and umbrellas. I think they had the wrong definition of what sun bathing really is.