Friday classes canceled too!!!

Friday class canceled! April 20 th my third school had a field trip so I got the day off! ( Wow- Fantastic Baby, Dance!) So I decided to spend the Entire weekend in Seoul. On Friday I met up with my good friend In Ho, unfortunately my other two Koreans friends couldn't meet:/ Anyways, we went to Children's park! There was an amusement park and zoo there! Of course the amusement park we spent most of our time in. We rode everything about twice and our favorites about 5. One of the best parts of the day was riding the Viken! ( the giant ship that swings back and forth). Of course we sat in the back on one side and on the other side was 4 elementary students! They waved hi and then my favorite song played "fantastic baby" and of course I sang along! The Korean boys thought it was so great that they sang with me and then we were competing for who could sing it the loudest. All the while their mothers are laughing behind them at the crazy foreigner singing with their kids.  Bumber cars was also a highlight! I am sure I rode it about 6 times. Many of the you get kids were very scared about the foreigner who looked ready to dominate:)  Saturday I went to nami island where the drama "winter sonata" had been filmed. We ( a group from church) took a zip line to the island! Way fun! Then toured the island a bit. It was raining so much that my shoes and socks were destroyed:(  Later that day I met friends for dinner and norebang and I had to buy shoes because I only brought one pair for the weekend. ( Travel packing, make sure all my outfits match one pair of shoes)  Sunday- went to church- dinner with Seung Ran ah- bus back home! 

No Class !!! Yes!

Classes canceled!!!?? On Wednesday the 18th after school classes were canceled because all the teachers were going on an outing. It was great, absolutely fantastic! The weather was beautiful and the spring blossoms were all out. It was a beautiful hike around a lake and I got to bond with my teachers a lot!  My vice principal is such a little kid  ( like me- I know). We were on a rope wood bridge and she began shaking the ropes. I was only holding on with one hand since my other hand was holding my wallet and water bottle so I was shaken a bit. Therefore, I turned out and yelled " Sonsengnim"! ( teacher) "hajima!" ( don't do that) in a very Korean accent:) The entire staff laughed so hard, as did I. Luckily being a foreigner I can get away with being informal but I also do realize the perfect situation to use it in.  After the hike we went to Myeongyeong-saejae for dinner and then departed! Best week ever!

Strawberry Festival!!!

Strawberry festival My strawberry days! Friday night after teaching I traveled 2 1/2 hrs to Daejeon. There I met up with 12 other teachers. We went to a hotel booked some rooms and went out for the night! The typical routine- eat, drink ( cider for me), and be merry ( norebang).  The next morning we caught a bus to Nonsan and walked to the strawberry festival. It was so cute! Everything was decorated with strawberries! Plastic, paper or wood! There was a lot of free strawberry samples and free meat samples! Strawberry ice cream, strawberry pancakes and waffles, strawberry cake, strawberry jam, strawberry painting etc. There was also an apache native American performance that reminded me of AZ. All in all it is a must do festival if ever you find yourself in Korea.  At the festival I bought two jars of jam for my schools( the loved it so much). After Nonsan I went back to Daejeon and from there took a two hr bus to Seoul! There I met with a Korean friend who studied with me for a few hours then I met up with another friend from church and crashed at her place.  Sunday and church was great! I was invited to dinner and left a little late and then got list at a transfer so... I missed my bus! I was going insane for a good ten minutes! Then I saw there was still one more for the night- the midnight bus leaving at 11pm. It was better than waiting the next day. So I had to wait for 3 hrs and sat in a Dunkin donuts forever to avoid the cold and to charge my phone! Luckily I survived and arrived home at 1 am and proceeded to have the best teaching week ever!

First Festival!

My first festival April 7th! I made plans to go to Jinhae for the biggest cherry blossom festival in Korea! It really did have the most cherry blossom trees I have ever seen...and this is how my adventures started... 

I met up with a large group of 13 in Gyeongju on friday night. Then we ate dinner and did norebang ( karaoke- this is our typical routine) till 3 am. After that whole night we woke up and proceeded to catch a noon bus to Masan. However there was a marathon going on so the taxi could not take us to the bus terminal so we walked! Missed the first bus and had to take a later one. Finally we got on the hour and half trip to Masan! 

Now Masan is a city right next to Jinhae so when we arrived we hopped on another bus to Jinhae. In total from gyeongju to Jinhae was about 3 hrs of traveling. Finally we arrive at the festival grounds. It was extremely beautiful with perfect weather. We walked down the main stream which was completely lined in cherry blossom trees. There was a lot of street food and fun toys( most of us purchased).

After a few hrs we thought we should head back to Gyeongju. However the congestion from the amount of people made traffic awful. The bus we were trying to take back was so full it didn't stop at our  bus stop. 

Next attempt: we walked to the train station crossing our fingers. No trains, to any decent location for the rest of the night! Also no taxis. 

Next attempt: (plan C) I was so tired and completely done with the clusters of people that I suggested we get on any bus and just get out of that city because any other city all have a bus terminal or at least easier traffic to travel in. Everyone agreed and we slammed into the next on coming bus. ( A huge thank you to Emily who blocked every ones way so our group could all get on)We stayed on the bus for about 40 minutes and ended up heading towards Busan. Then we followed some students taking another bus to get to downtown Busan(30min). After arriving we took the subway (50 min) to the bus terminal were we arrived with only 5 minutes to spare to catch the last bus to Gyeongju. We got on the bus (1 hr ). Finally we pulled in around 1 am only to realize we hadn't eaten dinner. We ate, we slept (kinda), we woke up, and walked to the bus terminal. From here at 8:30 in the mornng we split up from there to our individual cities. My bus ride was 2 hrs and 30 minutes back. 

This is the most crazy traveling I have done in one weekend and surprisingly the funniest part we had was randomly getting on a bus and just finding our way. We come up with a group name and dedicated a song to us that we listened to frequently throughout the night to keep us going. We all remained intact, no one got hurt and we all got home. Can't wait for the next festival:)

Team name: fantastic baby ( inspired by bigbang)