A Quiet Fall Weekend

Nothing much to report for this week. It was a quiet week at school, and Milton and I are having a quiet weekend at home too.

The Fall weather continues to be gorgeous here, so we took advantage of the sunshine and spent the day outdoors yesterday.

We started our morning with a quick trip to one of the outdoor gyms that is set up at a park near our apartment. We see these circuits set up all over the place- in every park, and on every mountain - but we hadn't fully tried one out. Well... turns out we weren't missing much! Either we are just to big for the equipment and so nothing worked right, or the stuff was designed by someone who has never worked out a day in his life because the equipment was just ridiculous! Most of it hurt us or would have caused injury if we continued to use it, and the rest of it just didn't really work any muscles! We had fun trying though...

Ooh, feel the burn... NOT!

Somehow, by spinning this wheel I am working the muscles in my back???!

Ok this one may have worked my arms a bit.

As you pull your arms down you lift your body at same time.

The ab workout was pretty hard on your back.

More pain than gain!

I think I've seen this one in an infomercial at home - that guy Tony something with the long hair sells it.

There is no way this one works your obliques -but then again, maybe we are just too tall for it to properly work.

This one would have been good for cardio if the arms and legs moved smoothly together at the same time. A bit rusty I think.

A view of the entire circuit.

My favourite: The twist machine!

Milton's favourite:

The Motorcycle/

Pelvic Thruster

After our tough workout we rested in the sun on a mini golf/driving course in the same park.

I know we stand out like sore thumbs in Korea all the time, but this time it was this man who really didn't seem to belong:

I think he was a Korean spy keeping an eye on us crazy waygooks, but Milton thinks he was just standing in the shade waiting for the bus since Koreans always hide from the sun.

Milton could be right since we've seen this before while waiting for the bus. I'm getting all the sun I can while waiting and these girls are ducking behind tiny bushes to get away from it!

We ended the morning playing badminton in the sun at our usual spot.

We had a lazy afternoon sitting in the sun at a cafe on a little pedestrian road near our place. It was not quite like the cafes in Europe but a good place to spend the afternoon people watching. It was a great fall day in Mokpo!

Imsung Elementary School Festival

Toward the end of the school year, every school in Korea puts on a school "festival". I don't know why they call it a festival - there is no common theme or one particular thing celebrated. It is more like a talent show or assembly where each class prepares a short play, song, or dance. This festival is quite a big to do though and every class rents costumes and the school prints big signs for it and has a background scene printed too.

These were the costumes for the MCs of the festival --- almost like bride and groom attire for kids!

The cutest performances of course were done by the youngest kids wearing incredible costumes and doing dance moves that they probably shouldn't have seen anywhere at there age!

Check out the leopard print hearts on the butts of these boys! I don't know what Koreans are thinking sometimes! - it is perfectly acceptable that five first grade students wear this and perform a routine to some boy band love song. Oh, and just so you get a complete idea of the look they had, the front was bare-chested.

The strangest thing about the festival was that although it showcased the students' talent for playing instruments, doing taekwondo and dancing, there was no singing at all and even the play was recorded on CD rather than spoken live. The playing of instruments was real though, and the drums were most impressive!

I of course wasn't asked to get involved at all and had no idea until the day before the festival that it actually existed. I was happy to see that the grade four class chose some English songs for their performance, but disappointed that they didn't sing. The songs are from the textbook and CD that are used in class and the students know all the words. it doesn't make sense that they would dance and not sing, but nothing ever does make sense in Korea! They are the actual songs that are part of the curriculum for grade 4 English ---it is so embarrassing that this is what I have to teach!

This video is especially for Drew and Denver --- new songs for you to learn and to sing around the house!

(Finally got it to work!!!)

There isn't much more I can say about the festival... just have a look at all the crazy costumes and check out the videos!

This was a grade 3 performance that was done by all the girls in the class, but i guess they were 1 girl short and this poor boy had to fill in with a wig!

I have a great story about this kindergarten kid front left... I thought HE was a SHE for the first month of school and it wasn't until we were doing the letter B and words that begin with B that I found out otherwise. I kept pointing to two students in the class saying "boy" and "girl". "Boy starts with the letter B". I pointed to him several times making the comparison between her and the boy next to him. He got all upset a kept saying something in Korean that I didn't understand and finally the teacher explained that "she" was a he!

Here the poor kid has to wear lipstick and pantyhose and as if that weren't bad enough, they told him to pull them up as high as they would go to hold his big belly in!

Above, notice the "slippers" that all the k-3 students wear. Blue for boys and pink for girls. If only I had noticed the slippers before I started pointing out all the boys in the class!!!

Halloween in Korea

Halloween isn't celebrated in Korea, but I did my best to make it happen anyways!
For the entire month of October I did Halloween themed lessons with my kindergarten, grade one and grade two students. I don't think they fully understood how much fun Halloween can be, but they enjoyed the candy I gave them!

I had the most fun with my kindergartens because they are the most adorable and it is so much easier to do stuff with them since there are only seven students in the class. We made flying witch lollipops, and learned a Halloween song that includes actions for Halloween characters, and we did a mummy wrap contest.

Milton and I also celebrated Halloween night by dressing up. Since they don't have many props and costume stuff in Korea we had to get creative. Milton went as Clark Kent and I was the Paper Bag Princess - cheap and easy costumes with things we could find easily in Korea!

Our friends Lisa and Barry (also Guelph natives) joined us for dinner before we all headed to a local bar where all the foreigners hang out and where there was a Halloween party going on. Lisa was dressed as Hell Girl and Barry told us he was a dentist. I think he changed his story when people started asking if he was McDreamy from Grey's anatomy!

The party was a bit of a fundraiser for an orphanage in Mokpo that Lisa and Barry volunteer at. There was a good crowd of foreigners in costume there, but did we ever get some looks from Koreans when we were in the streets making our way to the party! They don't have forks in Korea and they don't know what Halloween is so imagine what they thought when they saw a giant fork walking down the street!