bring on the floodworks

So I arrived at school at 9 and went into the audotorium where all the kids were meeting to recieve their graduating certificates, awards for the play and newspaper, and a slideshow of their semester at camp.

I was the only teacher to sit amongst my class with the other hundred students, while the other teachers sat in cushy chairs against the walls. Ahhh Awards about to start!!First was newspaper. Drumroll... duh duh duh dah...then all I heard was a bunch of Korean that I couldnt understand, and my kids are started cheering. I was going to ask for a translation but I think i got the jist of it.

I am so proud of them, beating out the competion of children 3-4 years younger than them. It brings a tear to my eye everytime I think about it. They recieved a gift certificate for 5$ to some playland, I dont know they didnt seem to thrilled. Probably a childish place since they were up against kids. haha.

Then came awards for the play... and the kids that put on Sister Act 2 were the winners, as they rightfully should have been. It was really well performed and a lot of fun to watch. After that followed the slideshow. It started with the first day of camp with all the kids meeting each other for the first time, to being assigned classes and meeting their new roomates, to all the activities that we did throughout. This one sweet girl in my class Jane, was loosing it. Ahhhhh the tears just wouldnt stop rolling. Then after the sad pictures ended, the kids were hit with a bunch of funny pictures all of the teachers and t.a's posed for. They started laughing uncontrolably, until we had to stop the slideshow... just kidding. So with that being said and done, and camp being over all we could do now is say our last goodbyes and pose for one hundred pictures.

I swear i have never seen a generation of kids with more cell phones than I have in my life, everyone 10 and up. I recieved a few departing gifts, a mini rugby ball keychain from New Zealand from my boy Mcdonald and this hand-made decorated scarf/hankerchief thingy from my girl Sofia. I was touched, I had a great group of kids and definitely will never forget any of them. So class by class they left to board the bus, and I was there waving away until I couldnt see them any longer.

Finally got rid of the kids now its me time. Chad and I made plans to go to the outback and then head to Busan for the day to walk around and check out some sites.

I walked home first to unwind and then we left for the bank to change over all of my American $$$. I ended up with 20,000 less won than I expected just because the buying market was a few pennies lower. No big deal. So now we were on our way to Busan, stop 126 (on the orange line) to head to The Outback, and let me tell you I have been craving a bloomin' onion for a week now so there was no question what I was getting.

We ate and hopped back onto the subway to get to the popular spot near the 2 universities at stop 212 (on the green line) to do some shopping and walkin around. The ocean was the most popular beach in all of South Korea lay just about 30-45 minutes walking from where we were so even though it was a hazy day we were still ocean bound.

We cut across the university and first stopped for a coffee cause Chad was jonesin', we sat and chatted about the beatles, the whole sexual harrassment ordeal, and the assassination of JFK.
We then continued on and finally got out first glimpse of the pacific ocean (East Sea). It was definitely not the nicest day but just seeing it was still as breathtaking. I am still in awe that i'm in Korea in the first place, but to be looking out over the ocean.

Chad got some hookup with a professor walking by along the coast and they exchanged business cards, which is a sign of honor in this country. We continued on and walked along the Gwangalli Beach to collect a few seashells. I threw some pebbles in the water to hear that amazing plop...plop...plop sound of 1000 little rocks and I was ready to carry on. Chad had to stop once again at a local Starbucks for a green tea chai latte and I sat and looked at the beach. We arrived there at sundown and the Huge Gwangan Bridge slowly began to light up as the sun went down in a huge colorful spectacle. It was awesome, the bridge had changing colors from red to white to blues and greens and almost every post and railing had some sort of light flowing from within it.

We walked a little further up before turning around and coming down a busy bustling street with the kind of stores I came to Korea looking for. I found a cool snowboard and clothing shop called one-eight, some cool urban clothing and nike shoe shops, an old wooden antique shop that had some amazingly old carvings and sculptures that could make a lot of money selling his stuff online. And finally a clothing shop were they sold LRG (Lifted Research Group) clothing. So I bargained for a zipper down hoodie and a pair of jeans for 85,000 won down from 103,000. I dont care if they are fake they look and feel awesome and back home in Canada each one would have went for 100+ easily. So that was about the end of our day, so we jumped back on a subway and headed home, we had been gone for 9 hours and put about 4-5 miles on our feet. Luckily I have a day off tommorow.

Heres to the mom and pops