Last week, we had Wednesday off school because of National Voting Day, which happened to fall on a wonderful day because we could celebrate my birthday the night before. We told our climbing group, all the the teachers at our school, and the few foreign friends we have, but we didn't know what kind of turn-out to expect. We reserved the back room at a Korean meat restaurant, where you sit on the floor around a long table that has multiple grills throughout it.
It turned out that almost everyone we invited ended up coming. We had over 30 people, and we were definitely the minority with less than 10 of us white...it was such a fun time! Inevitably, when you have that many people, it is a good time, right? I even had 3 birthday cakes!!
This past weekend, we ran an English camp for our climbing groups' children. There were 17 kids signed up (ages ranging from 5-15), and 4 of us "white people" running it. On Saturday, the guys picked up us at 230 and we headed out into the mountains to a beautiful valley that was just amazing....rivers, paragliders, tons of trees, gardens everywhere.... We had a large campgroup to ourselves, and the parents camped a few campgrounds away from us.
Going into the day on Saturday, we had it all planned out...games, times, meals..but it turned out to go very differently than expected. I guess we didn't account for the wide range of ages, but every time we tried to do an activity, it was quickly over, as many kids got bored or tired easily. We ate dinner (mac n cheese from scratch...a new one for the kids)earlier than we had plan, then scrabbled for more things to do. When it started getting dark, we made s'mores, which they loved as none of them had tried it before. They were all in their tents at 930 when their dads came over with beer, soju, and makalie...haha, I guess they know how stressful it can be to take care of children. Also, throughout the day we had 22 kids and just thought more kids came along...but apparently we picked up kids from neighboring campgrounds...haha, and we had no idea!
The next morning, we were planning on the kids sleeping in til around 8. They had stayed up chatting until around midnight...but no, they all woke us up at 620AM!!! We were not very happy, as we had also stayed up late hanging out with their parents.
When we got up at 620, I decided to take them on a run. On my training schedule, I had only a 15 minute run scheduled for that day, so I figured I'd punish the kids and make them run too...haha! It went pretty well, and we stopped for stretches, and other exercises to make it longer. When we got back, Jared and I made them breakfast (eggs n toast), then we took them on a LONG walk...it was so beautiful...there weren't many people living around there, but the ones who did had huge gardens, rice patties, and greenhouses. We sung songs and talked about different things. It was really fun. When we got back, it was already 10am, and was hot, hot hot! There was a small river behind out campsite, and for the next 2.5 hours until the parents came with pizza, the kids played there, as well as painted with Jared (they loved that!)..A nice, relaxing day compared to the day before.
Like I said, the parents came around 1230, we had pizza and cake, then we played joke-goo, the soccer-volleyball game that I love so much. We were in the sun for the rest of the day, and running around...so tiring. After playing, we had dinner and drinks, compliments of the parents, and they gave us gifts for taking their children for the past 24 hours. They gave us a really nice swiss army knife, and a woven model of a traditional rice planting tool, now used for goof luck. It was very sweet of them.
When we started the English Camp, we were a bit nervous. We did have some incidents with a few boys, but nothing too big. Afterwards, I was really happy we did it. It was a great way to support such a great group of guys who have been really helpful and wonderful to us for the past few months.
We are now well on a way through another week, with tomorrow being Friday again. (wohoo!) On Saturday, we are going to a Korean baseball game, then finding a bar to watch the first World Cup soccer game for us here, Korea vs. Greece!
Good luck, USA in the World Cup!!! It should be an exciting next couple weeks.
We started a karate class this week and are going three times a week for a little over an hour each time...it's been awseom for our bodies so far...very hard, but great exercise, and good for the mind (I think). We will let you know how that comes along.
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