Last week was again wonderfully short. The 6th graders went on their graduation field trip, a sight-seeing tour around Jeju Island, on Thursday and Friday. I usually teach 6th grade on Thursdays...so no class! Friday was my planning day, so I only taught 3 days last week. My co-teacher invited me to accompany her and a few other 4th grade teachers to Seogwipo (sog-ee-po) City on the southern tip of the island to visit the 6th grade students and teachers Thursday night. We left school, drove over Halla Mountain, and came into Seogwipo just as the sun was setting. After joining the kids for a buffet dinner we walked down to Cheonjiyeon Waterfall where the kids were enjoying an outdoor show in the amphitheater. The performer was a comedian of sorts and making them do all kinds of funny things. It was really fun to be included and the 6th grade teachers appreciated us visiting and kept thanking us for coming. We drove home in the dark and saw at least 10 wild deer (No-ru) while we were driving over the mountain. They are supposed to be a sign of good fortune...
Cheonjiyeon Waterfall at night
Saturday morning we left for Chuja-do, an island northwest of Jeju Island. My friend John is the Foreign English teacher there and 5 of us took the ferry to visit him. Unfortunately, the 9:30 ferry was sold-out by the time we got there, so we meandered through Tapdong and got some Dunkin' Donuts coffee. We ran into a bunch of my students riding bikes and they got to play with Pita the puppy. We caught the 1:40pm ferry and enjoyed a sunny, scenic, serene boat ride across the sea. John met us at the ferry and we spent the day walking around Chuja Island. We really lucked out with beautiful, sunny weather all weekend! John invited some of his friends from school and "older brothers" out to have dinner with us. We ate at a seafood restaurant (they're all seafood restaurants...Chuja is famous for local and fresh fish) and the meal was delicious. (Of course, we also enjoyed soju!) We had 4 courses of fish dishes: sashimi, fish "pizza", grilled fish, and fish soup. After dinner we went to a bar where we drank maek-ju (beer) and toasted the night away. John's friends really took a liking to Juan. I don't think they'd ever met a Spaniard before. 
Sunday was even more beautiful than Saturday. John took us on some hikes around the island and through the 4 villages. We went up and over the peak in the middle of the island which has a 360 degree view of Chuja, all the small surrounding islands, and the sparkling sea. If ever the big city life of Jeju (ha!) gets to be too much, I know I can escape to Chuja for a few days. Most Koreans have never been to Chuja and I invited a few of my Korean friends next time I go. We caught the 4:15 ferry back to Jeju and we all slept the hour ride home.
Mondays I teach 5th grade all day. It can be very tiring and frustrating if they are particularly feisty or if the lesson doesn't work. But today was a very good day! My co-teacher and I planned our new lesson titled "What are you doing?" last week and I wanted the kids to come up with their own vocabulary instead of using the usual 'listen and repeat' method to give them vocabulary words. They really got the idea and contributed long lists of action verbs that we made into gerunds ("ing"). Then we played a theater game called 'Slideshow' where the kids act out a picture of the action and other students guess what their action is. The kids really got into it and had fun acting, working in groups, thinking creatively, and writing. I was really happy how well it turned out. They don't all work that way! Then we played a simplified form of Mad-libs and made funny stories using our new action verbs and some review words like adjectives and types of food. Again, all of them wrote at least a few words and most of them understood the lesson and wrote pretty funny stories.
In the 6th grade, we're in the process of writing Pen Pal letters to my mom and step dad's 6th graders in Federal Way. My kids are excited about it and are doing pretty well with writing and learning the letter form. They don't spend a lot of time writing as a part of their curriculum here so I'm trying to incorporate that a little more, especially in the 5th and 6th grades.
On Thursday the whole school is going on field trips. I'm going with the 4th grade to the Dinosaur Thema Park! Yes, Thema. It's right next to my apartment and I've wanted to go since I got here. I've heard it's a little lame, but it should be fun going with the kids. The 4th graders are really great kids and the teachers are a lot of fun. Thursday night I'm hiking Sarabong with my friend Jessica. The sunset is supposed to be beautiful from the top and it's only a 30 minute walk. And next weekend we're going back to Hallasan, this time to the summit. The weather has been consistently nice for the last few weeks, sunny, warm, light breeze. I hope it holds out a little longer. It should be a great week!
The posse: Cindy, John, Kati, Pita, Me, Julia and Juan
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