First Week of Class and Other Shenanigans

I finally started teaching! Almost everyone else I know started teaching on Monday last week. I was told to wait until Thursday to start, so I had a few extra days to let me nerves build. It finally happened though, Thursday came and I was ready! Or so I thought..  I went in around 10am on Thursday to get everything set up and make sure I was ready to go at 2:10 when my first students showed up. Everything was going great! I had my powerpoint set up, my desks arranged the way I wanted, and was youtubing 'hello' songs I could use for the class when they came in. All of a sudden my door to my classroom slid open. In comes two little Korean kids, "Hello Teacher!! Nice to meet you!!! Bye!!", and off they went. I just laughed and went back to my youtubing. A few minutes later, same thing. "Hello Teacher!! Where are you from? Bye!!" This continued all morning, little visitors so eager to speak English to me! Most of them didn't even give me enough time to reply before running out of the classroom and back down the hall. Finally, a group of three little Korean girls come in and just walk straight up behind my desk where I'm sitting and start watching what I'm doing. In a minute I feel one of them petting my hair. I slowly turn around and look at her and they all three start laughing and speaking in Korean. Then one of them says, "Teacher, yellow hair!", then they all three continue to touch my hair and say, "Teacher has yellow hair!" After they get bored of petting my hair, they run off. Silly kids! A little bit before lunch, my doors open again and two little boys come in and go straight to my broom closest, get two brooms and start sweeping my room. About 30 seconds later, a little girl comes in with her own broom and joins them. Child labor laws don't exist here, I guess? haha Just kidding, but apparently this is a common thing. So they sweep my room for a few minutes, put everything up and run off. Oh, Korea! 

Little angels, sweeping my room! 

Welcome to Miss Kyla's English class!!! 

Eventually, the time comes for class to start. I feel so prepared, but had no idea what kind of tornado these kids would be! They're wild little animals. So cute, but man they're crazy! I can see that it's going to be a challenge to get their attention, but I'm determined that I can do it. I had three classes back to back, 40 minutes a piece. I only taught two days last week and I was exhausted from trying to control them, teaching 4-5 days this week should be interesting. (I saw 4-5 because I'm still not sure what days I teach. haha I'm pretty sure I'm off Wednesday's, but I don't want to get too excited if it's not true.) Prayers are greatly appreciated. It's about a million times tougher/different than what I was expecting and from what I'm used to in the states, but challenge accepted! 

Here's one of my cute little 2nd graders! She's so smart! 

Finally, it was Friday and time for our first weekend getaway. We are going to try and make these weekend excursions a regular thing. Our first destination was in Buan, about an hour South by bus. Our friend Brittney, who lives in Jeonju, came to Gunsan Friday night and we all left Saturday morning. We successfully made it to the bus station, purchased our tickets to Buan and got on the bus just in the nick of time! Literally, as we were walking to our seats, the bus started pulling off. Phew! That was a close one! About an hour later, we arrived in Buan and our friend Justin greeted us at the bus terminal. From there we were off to the real adventure of the weekend...TRICK MONKEYS! There is a monkey school in Buan where monkeys do tricks. So fun! Once again, we successfully manage to find the bus needed to get to the monkeys. Little did we know this would be taking us to the middle of no where. We hop off the bus and walk in the direction of the Monkey School. Some old man kept saying, "No, no, no.", when we got off but it wasn't until a few minutes later that we realized what he meant. Laura spots the sign and we are pumped! We turn the corner and see gates and a "monkey school" that looks like an abandoned lot. :( NOOOO! So we keep walking and investigating, ignoring a huge sign. No such luck! Finally, Justin gets his translator app out and translates the sign...Closed. 

Laura found the Monkey School sign!

"Closed" ...who knew? I should have studied harder in Korean. 

This was the bus stop. This is what middle of nowhere bus stops look like...comfy!

So now we're in the middle of no where, the only bus just dropped us off and left, and now we know why the old man was yelling no at us when we got off the bus. haha Language barrier-1 Us-0 So we decide that since we're stuck here, might as well explore. We saw a sign for the Gaeamsa Temple, and head that way. About 2 miles later, we find a beautiful lake surrounded by trees and mountains! We stopped for some climbing and photo opts. Fortunately, the weather was beautiful yesterday. Unfortunately, I was dressed for monkey watching, not mountain climbing. But I pushed on, and about a mile later, we came across the Temple. It was so pretty, and gave us so many more picture opportunities! It was fun to explore, but we were getting hungry. After a little bit, we turn around and head back towards the bus station. We ate at a random Korean restaurant in the middle of no where and made it back in time for our bus back to Buan! 

Reminds me of Oklahoma! 

My little tree climbers! 

We played card games for a few hours, ordered a pizza and finally hit the hay! This morning we woke up and had an awesome breakfast, and set out for our second adventure, hoping it'd be much more successful than the monkeys. Fail! In true Oklahoma fashion, the beautiful 68 degree weather yesterday was quickly exchanged for 41 degrees today, and wind just like the Great Plains. We were determined to make it to our destination though, and ventured out! We were off to the Saemangeum Seawall. It is the worlds biggest seawall and it connects Buan to Gunsan over the Yellow Sea. Eventually it'll be a huge city, but for now it's just a seawall and an information center. We were successful yet again with the bus to the Seawall and got to walk around the information center for a while and read all about it! It's going to be pretty cool. Kinda creepy at how advanced and technological it'll be when it's finished, but it'll be awesome. We decided we better head back to Buan to catch our bus home, so after a few pictures and asking for instructions on what to do,  we go across the street and wait for a bus to come.

Breaking records! 

This is what it'll look like when it's finished.

Yellow Sea on a windy day! 

Seawall and Yellow Sea

So windy...so cold! 

 So here we are, six Waygooks (foreigners) on the side of a road...not even at a bus stop...in the middle of no where, waiting for a bus to come in this freezing, windy weather. We were so cold, and just hoping a bus would come. We waited and waited...and waited some more. It was miserable! Here is yet another example of how amazingly nice Koreans are: So we're waiting and looking pretty pathetic, all of these cars keep passing us but finally one stops. Out jumps this little Korean boy, probably 13 years old, with almost perfect English (praise English teachers!!! haha jk..but really..) He says, "Hi, my dad just drove by a few minutes ago and thought you guys could use some help, so he told us we should come and see if you were okay." We explain to him that we were told if we just stood here, the bus would come at 2:00 and so we were just waiting. He said, "Oh, okay, we just wanted to see if you needed any help with anything." How sweet! Koreans are the best! But we tell him we're fine and they leave. A few minutes later, our bus comes and we couldn't be more excited. We made it to the bus terminal just in time to get tickets back to Gunsan, going 4/4 this weekend in the bus situation! Score! Let's hope our record holds for the next 5 months! haha It was a crazy, weird weekend, but it was a blast! I can't wait to see what next weekend holds! Until then, I have to lesson plan and figure out what to teach these cute little kids! Have a good Sunday, America! We're one hour closer, thanks to ole daylight savings time. It doesn't exist over here, so we're 14 hours apart, rather than 15! Until next time! 


-Kyla