Everland

Last weekend I went back to an amusement park just outside of Seoul called Everland. I went as part of a church trip to help out with the kids which doubles up as a chance for them to interact with foreigners and practise speaking in English for the day. I did the same trip last year so when I was invited back again this year, I jumped at the chance because I knew it would be a lot of fun. The morning is spent with a small group of children that you take around the park and are responsible for and then after lunch, which everyone eats together, the foreigners are free to go off and do their own thing. Brilliant.

Everland is a great amusement park. It's centered more around the overall atmosphere of the park than the quality or 'thrill' of the rides, as it only has two big roller coasters. But I love the atmosphere there and although I've never been to Disney, I imagine it's comparable. It has the same kind of vibe. The music, the scenery, the parades, the staff dressed up walking around and greeting you. It all just fills you with such a nice feeling inside.

The only downside to Everland is how busy it gets. It's ridiculous. The queues for every single ride are insane. We were told the the waiting time for T-Express (the 'biggy' and apparently the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world!!) would be one hour and a half so considering all the other rides were about an hour wait we didn't think it was 'too' bad. But we actually ended up waiting in line for two and a half hours. I literally wanted to throw myself off the thing by the time we finally got on it!

I'm not sure anything is worth that long a wait so I won't be cliche about it but it is a great roller coaster and it definitely wasn't a disappointment even after waiting so long. I'd actually forgotten how good it was from the year before. If only the queue wasn't so long, I would have gone on again!

Singok Festival Day

Last week was my school's (Singok Elementary) Festival Day. Festival Day is a huge event that the whole school, students and teachers, spend weeks preparing for. From what I can gather, each school has a this kind of event once every two years so it was my first experience of Festival Day and what a great day it was too!

It was the first time in just over a year that I have seen the whole school, everyone one of the one thousand (PLUS) children, grades one to six,  together in one place because for obvious reasons, getting that amount of children together regularly would be difficult never mind the lack of space. The students here don't have morning assemblies like they do in England. Instead they have a morning broadcast in which the principle (and sometimes other staff and even chosen students) address the school but with each class watching from  the comfort of their own classroom. The school anthem is always played as is the National Anthem which the children sing along to. Assembly time at my old school, as boring as they sometimes were, were always a happy time. A feeling of warmth and togetherness and belonging. And it's a shame that Korean students don't get to share that special time together.

That was the main reason Festival Day was so nice for me. Everybody together for the first time. It felt really special and I couldn't help but smile all day. It was actually a little overwhelming at first seeing the school for the first time on this scale and realising for the first time, 'Wow. This school really is seven times the size of the tiny little one-form entry school that I used to work at!' It really was a special event and I really felt part of it and like I belonged there.

There were sports (many running races) and dance events for each grade throughout the day and even the parents and grandparents were involved in some of the activities too which was nice to see. The whole day was very well organised and managed which was impressive because I know how difficult it is to organise 'big' events in a school one seventh of the size. So I can't even begin to imagine how difficult this must have been!

The whole grade dances were my favourite. They were so impressive simply because there were so many students (approximately two hundred per dance) dancing together in time to the music. Each dance was very well done and I was so proud of all my students.

To end the day off nicely we finished early and all the teachers went for a big dinner together. Lovely.

Road to Recovery

It's been a while since my accident, exactly nine weeks today to be precise, and it's seems like it's been FOREVER and even with trips to Thailand and China in the meantime.

Last week I made my last daily trip to the hospital for physiotherapy which I'd been having every day after school for four weeks. From the beginning to the very end, all the hospital staff looked after me so well and were so kind and helpful despite the language barrier which was a huge initial worry for me. But I needn't have worried. I got treated better than I could have ever imagined at Hongik hospital and especially so by my orthopedic doctor, the receptionist and my lovely physiotherapist/ friend. Their care was outstanding and I'm going to miss them a lot.

To thank them for all their help and care throughout my recovery I gave each of them a card that I wrote completely in Korean. Before you get excited, I'm still at a level where I can write only single words and phrases, no where near being able to express my gratitude to them. So I wrote down in English exactly what I wanted to say and my friend Yuseon from school translated it for me. I then copied (what turned out to be a huge paragraph) into the card. And even just copying took me forever. But I really wanted to make a bigger effort than simply writing in English because each of them had had to work so much harder to speak in English every time for my benefit. So it was my turn to work a bit harder for them. I really wanted them to understand that I was more thankful than I could express in words for them being able to help me in English because I understand what they had to go through to be able to communicate with me at that level (the endless English lessons until ridiculous hours that they had to endure and generally having a miserable life throughout their education as most Korean students do!) If they've never seen any other benefit for all those hours of misery then it was of more than benefit to me during one of my most difficult times in Korea when I didn't have to people I needed to get me through it. So I'll be forever grateful to those people at that hospital for being the people that did help me through it.

My wonderful physiotherapist and friend 아람 (Aram) during our little 'food, drink and photo' party on my last visit. She was really touched by the card and she said to me, "I don't have enough English to tell you how happy I am about this card!" Sooo cute. 

This week I have taken the cast off which also means no more stupid big blue shoe thing and instead a matching pair of shoes (yaaaaaaay!!!) I'm also beginning to walk to school in the mornings again instead of having to take a taxi (but this means getting up at the earlier time once again though- not so yay!) Despite the occasional pain, everything is beginning to get back to normal! And according to the doctor, within the next few weeks I should have made a full recovery! Yay!