Pictures of Weekend Camp

Weekend Camp

This past weekend I did a camp here at my elementary school. The camp was for students and their parents. We had about 150 students and parents. All the teachers in my school had to be here for the camp even if they were not teaching.

Saturday afternoon I taught 6 classes on how to make popcorn! For those of you that know me, know that I love popcorn so it was right up my alley. ha ha ha. The kids were a little scared at first about the popping. Most groups didn't wait for the popping to stop completely before taking the lid off so then the popcorn would continue to pop and all the kids would jump and scream when popcorn came flying out every where. It was pretty amusing. You will notice in the pictures that most of the kids wanted to stand on the chairs are look down on the popcorn while it was in the pan popping. I think they did this so that they could see but be far enough away in case something happened.

Sunday morning I was in charge of a quiz game. This game was played at the same time by everyone at the camp. So in a sense I was the host. We had some technical difficulty with the microphones. I assured the other teachers that would not be a problem since I used to be a cheerleader so I am sure that I could yell if I had to. I did have to yell a little and it hurt my voice, but oh well.

I have put some pictures of the students and then I will post again of just me and some of the students. All in all it was a great weekend camp. I am very tired today (Monday), but it is the last day of the semester and I start teaching summer school tomorrow!

More pictures of the Swimming Hole

Best Swimming Hole EVER

Today was a bright sunny day. For the first time since I have been here it felt like summer. It was pretty hot as well. Not to mention the humidity was super high. Oh well you just sweat a lot and get used to it I guess.

After school a few of us went home and grabbed our swim suits and beach towels and headed to the best swimming hole I have ever seen. It was truly one of the most beautiful sights I have seen in my entire life. One being the key word in that last sentence.

We had to first climb down to the swimming hole. Not to worry there were actual stairs. You did need to literally watch your step though. The stairs were steep and in some places down the path the plants had grown over. There is a sign at the top that tells the historical importance of the area that we were in. I found out on the way home that the other side of the sign was actually in English! Ha ha ha. Silly me, I should have looked. Everything around was very green. I was told that it will stay green all year long.

The water was clear and beautiful. It took my breath away. I just kept saying "WOW". Everyone laughed because they knew it was my first time. They said not to worry everyone does that. So then I didn't feel as stupid because I was aw struck.

We swam for as long as the sun would let us. The water was not very warm yet but at least warm enough for us to swim and not be cold after the first minute of adjusting. There are great rocks to dive off of. Yes I of course was all about doing that. I did however make others go first because I had never swam there before so I wasn't sure about the depth. Not to worry mom, I am here with no injuries! So please do not have a heart attack while you read this! Ha ha ha. You can also swim under the bridge type thin that you can see is separating the pool from the rest of the ocean. The water is pretty clear as you can see from the pictures. I borrowed some goggles and saw all sorts of bright colored fish and what not. I am going to buy a snorkeling set as I hear there is great snorkeling to be done all over the island. People also tell me that I have just tipped the ice berg of the amazing swimming holes and beaches! How exciting!

The pictures that I took do not capture the intensity of this spot but I hope that it at least give you some idea of the wonderful location. I will be visiting this place often as it is pretty close to my house. It cost about $2 to take a cab there and when you have a few people, that $2 gets divided among everyone. For sure it is a great deal for all the beauty that you get to embrace.

More Jeju United Pictures

Here are just a few more pictures from the games. Oh and the little boy is just some cute little Korean boy that stuck his inflatable noise makers in the back of his shirt! Ha ha ha. It was cute!

Jeju United- Futbol AKA Soccer

Here in Jeju they have a football team or as we westerners like to call it, soccer. It is a pretty great deal actually. You go to the game and pay for a bright orange t-shirt that has the team name on it. It cost you about 1,000 Won which is about $1. After that you get into every home game for free! It gets even better because you can bring any outside food and drinks that you want into the stadium. So everyone goes to the place called E-Mart, which is sort of like a Wal-Mart, and grabs food and beer before the game.

The stadium is amazing. Jeju hosted the 2002 World Cup so the local soccer team has the World Cup Stadium as their home field. It is awesome.

Even though the event is pretty much free, there are still not a lot of supporters that come out. All of us foreigners are loved by the Koreans because we are loud and do all the cheers and chants that they teach us. We of course love going because it is a good time and costs us near to nothing for a few hours of entertainment. There are Korean fans there that have giants flags. I took a picture of one of them that was close to us. He was actually a lot closer to me then the picture makes it look. I was a little nervous that he was actually going to hit me! Ha ha ha. I have more pictures that I will try to post. The season runs through September sometime.

And so we SANG..... Rain Rain Go Away

Hello everyone. I have been on the island of Jeju for going on four weeks now! It is very exciting. I am still doing a lot of adjusting. There are a lot of culture shocks. Not to worry I have a blog planned for a few of those. So keep your eyes out!

I have come right in the middle of the rainy season here. So everyday it rains. For the entire month of June we have had maybe four days of sun. Most of those have fallen during the week. So there is no time to go out and enjoy the sunshine. The teachers here tell me that it will be like this until mid July. Then it will get very hot and humid. By then I will be ready for it, but know that after about two weeks of that kinda of sticky weather I will want the rain back! Ha ha ha.

Since there has been so much rain, we English teachers have found various outlets to have fun! The second weekend I was here we all went out for another English teacher's 40th birthday! We went to a bar called Muse. It was very nice. More like a lounge in the US. After that, some of us went to karaoke.

Karaoke is a lot different here than in the US. Here you rent a room. You have a phone in the room that calls the front desk where you can order food and drinks. There are even costumes that you can wear while you sing. You can see in the pictures that the costumes were a big hit with our group!