It's almost March. Unreal. This has been a pretty busy month - in a much better way than January was. For Sul Nal (Korean Lunar New Year... better known as Chinese New Year for those playing at home), five of the teachers at my school and myself headed to Beijing for four days. It was unbelievable. The pictures I posted on Facebook tell a better story, but I'll give the run down. We flew out of a very quiet Busan Gimhae International Airport. New Year's is a big time to spend with family, so very few people were traveling out of the country besides foreigners. There were 17 people on our tour, including Valerie - the girl from Sudbury I met at orientation.
We arrived in Beijing around 4:30PM on Saturday, the 13th. We met our tour guide and headed to dinner and then an unbelievable acrobat show. Even that early in the evening, the fireworks had started. By midnight that night, they filled the entire sky. People were shooting them off on the street, from the roof and even out the window of a few apartments.
On Sunday, we toured a Jade factory before hitting the Great Wall of China. There are a few sections of the wall you can climb. Our spot took us up to one of the highest points. It was over 2000 steps. Everyone was pretty tired by the end, but it was the most satisfying experience of the whole trip. The afternoon brought us to the Summer Palace. It's a beautiful spot that would (unsurprisingly) be even more beautiful in the summer. I think some of the mystique was lost on us by that point. The Wall had left us pretty cold and a little sore. We ended the day with a quick visit to the Olympic Village to see the Bird's Nest. There was an optional Kung Fu show that night that I skipped in favor of soaking out my aches in our hotel hot tub. I regret nothing.
Monday we headed to Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City. The place is huge. And crowded. I think every tour group in Beijing was there at the same time as we were. In the afternoon, we hit up a tea ceremony and the Temple of Heaven. China has some of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen.
After some shopping on Tuesday, it was back to Busan. Everyone was exhausted all week... which was unfortunate because it was the beginning of crunch time before...
KINDERGARTEN GRADUATION. What a crazy, four hour long experience. Each class has been working on a performance for over two months now. Lemon class showed off their dancing and wikipedia reciting skills in "This is It! A Loving Tribute to Michael Jackson. I can't even begin to explain to you this show. Given the material, they did amazingly well. The danced their sequined adorned butts off and only stumbled over a few lines in a twenty-minute play. I was pretty proud of them. The actual graduation ceremony was only about half an hour. The kids that were graduating were all given awards. Some of them made sense (Grace, for being warm hearted... no one in my class for the Cooperation award), some seemed like ironic jabs at our troublemakers (Toby, for being a good leader. He is a big bully) and some were given just so kids didn't go home empty handed (Julia, for painting. ECC does not, nor has it ever, had painting at school. Plus, Julia hates art). At the end of the show, Grace's mom gave me a really heartfelt thank-you for teaching her daughter. It was pretty sweet. The school took the teachers out for dinner after everything was finished. We had barbeque (surprise! not) and too much soju (there was a lot to toast to).
Now I am kindergarten free until Thursday when the new school year starts. I am going to miss Lemon class and their moodiness, but rumor has it I am teaching them their Ivy Masters classes on MWF. No official word on who my new kindie class will be, but after some covert ops snooping in the teacher's room on Friday night after everyone important had left, I think I am teaching the new Banana class. They're first year kindergarteners and six years old (five in western years). This means I will get some of the kids I taught Kindergarten Warm Up to this month, which is awesome because they are adorable.
The Olympics are ending this weekend. I've been following along on CBC's website and watching what I can on TV. All they seem to air is skating. I did get to watch Kim Yu-Na win gold in women's figure skating. She is a national hero in Korea and time pretty much stopped during her skate. Teachers at school were crying while they watched. I kept my Canadian bronze medal excitement to myself.
Enjoying my three day weekend for the March 1st Movement Day celebrating South Korea's independence.
