Mama Letty’s Korean Adventure: Day 3
Day 3: Happy Chuseok!! Today lots of things were closed due to the holiday but one place that wasn’t close was EVERLAND!! So we took the subway to Gangnam Station on line 2 then we took bus number 5002 to Everland. On the way there the bus was standing room only. At the bus stop we took a free shuttle to EVERLAND. At first Everland pissed us off because the ticket booth lady was an idiot and when Chad tried to buy tickets she was just not getting it. He even said it in Korean. So Chad and I got super discounts, Kyle and Jamie got the foreigner discount and mom had to pay full price, because I guess she looks Korean…. Yeah ticket booth lady=stupid.
Once inside the place was great! Really crowded with all the other Asians in Korea besides Koreans. It was the Halloween Festival so everything was themed Halloween, which was amazing!! Then we went to this area that had birds you can feed, I’m terrified of birds but I tried it out.
Then was so much to do and see. In Everland, you have rides, a zoo and shows. Here are some highlights.
First Encounter with Korean Theatre: Miso, Beautiful Smile
Me with some Korean Actresses
This is old news but I wanted to share it with everyone out there, especially theatre lovers.
So this was during the Chuseok Holiday vacation we had last September 20-23. Chad and I went to see this original Korean Musical called Miso which means “beautiful smile” in Korean. It had no dialogue, a little bit of singing from the “mother” character and during the wedding scene at the end. The story is from a traditional Korean love story it’s considered Korea’s Romeo and Juliet (but with a happy ending) the theatre’s website describes it as:
” ‘MISO’ is a narrative set in the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) that tells of how an encounter between a certain young man and woman leads to an ardent love that matures throughout the progress of the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Dazzling spectacles of traditional Korean culture, including traditional dance, instrumental music, “phungmulnori” (a traditional folk musical act featuring a percussion quartet) and “pansori” (a type of traditional narrative vocal music) meld with this beautiful tale of romance, and is sure to enrapture not only our Korean audiences but visitors from overseas as well.”
The best part, I got pull on stage. One of the actors picked me out of the crowd and I got to spin and toss plates with the actors on stage. They couldn’t have pick a better 미국 사람 (Mi Gook or American) to come on stage. It was the best moment I’ve had in Korea. After the plate spinning they let me keep the pipe.
Other than that it had AMAZING lighting. The best I’d ever seen (sorry Lion King) but it was spectacular. There was this part in the river and the water was shown onstage by lighting and as each girl danced in the water it created ripples! I’m a pretty savvy techie and I’m not quite sure how they did that.
I can’t wait to see more Korean theatre!!
My First Day
My Staff Photo
So Aug 2 was my first day. I got there super early so I could figure out what I’m doing. There are lots of books and curriculum I have to learn and figure out. Most of the classes I teach weren’t even covered in training. 😛 I’m not a main Kinder teacher I’m the “art teacher” hence the Understanding Art book I’m holding. I teach Arts and Crafts, Show and Tell, and Cartoon Network- which is the worst class. The students aren’t bad it’s the class, how am I suppose to teach and talk about ONE 15 minute cartoon episode each month!?!?! They’ve seen all the episodes and half the class loves it and the other half hates it.
I also have afternoon classes I teach mostly Post Kinder (meaning they went to Kindergarten at ECC) I also have Elementary age students and one class of Academy students (meaning they are in Middle school)
There are several levels of English books that YBM has:
The earliest are Happy Hearts and Wake Up (which I don’t teach)
English World(I also don’t teach)
Playground
Carnival
Odyssey (I also don’t teach)
I only teach the Playground and Carnival level to the Elementary kids. Which is pretty easy. I did have a hard time teaching holidays. The book used a ton of American holidays that my class wasn’t familiar with at all. Thanksgiving was easy to explain because Korea has a Harvest Festival called Chu-seok which is similar. BUT try explaining Easter Sunday and what the Easter Bunny, colored eggs, and Christianity have to do with each other. Yeah that was weird….
Still just getting use to everything and find the level of my students. I’m tying to gage their intelligence, maturity, abilities, and likes. That’s the most important part in working with them.
A Photo A Day When You're Far Away 