Trips and Talent Shows

Hello hello~~

This week was crazy. Critical levels of air pollution meant I was sick all week, and so much happened!

The talent show on Friday meant all sorts of missed classes and rehearsals, and my teacher trip to Anmyeongdo was immediately after. All in all it was super fun but really tiring.

For the talent show I had to take pictures since I am otherwise useless, which turned into an ordeal since the school camera died and I had to run and get my own halfway through the first show.

For the first show, it was the odd grades, and for the second, even. Since So Jung had to work with the MC's we got to see both shows! It was tiring to help set up and keep order along with trying to dodge parents who were frantically trying to record every second of the show. Phew! I did take a lot of pics. 

 Here are a million pics of the show:

The fifth grade play that Seunghee, my coteacher directed. It's Cinderella, and it features Small Korean Harry Potter as one of the stepsisters. Hilarious.

Next is some Korean line/folk/line dancing.

Ukulele! 

The first graders did a dance:

This is pretty representative of how these things go. 

Fifth grade!

 One of my favorites was the 3rd grade girls doing a fan dance. I love fan dances. And they look so pretty and wonderful! They were really good.

Then the 4th - 6th graders did a Lion King medley!

Next there was a drum performance, featuring the janggu which I learned for a hot second:

The second show started with the second graders doing an umbrella dance. This was Su Hyeon's class, and she was my coteacher last year so I am quite fond of this one. 

Next the 4th graders played the Ocarina, which I did not know is a real instrument and not just something from the Legend of Zelda.

I would be lying if I said these two boys weren't some of my favorite students.

They made bird whistle noises 

Add in some violin! 

Then the 6th graders did a Little Mermaid play, also under Seunghee's direction, that featured some of my favorite boys cross dressing as girls. The students loved it. It was one of my favorite performances, partially because the boys were so into their characters and the outfits.

I couldn't stop laughing.

dying.

The "Kiss the Girl" scene brought down the house.

They didn't really kiss.

Second grade dance and song to the tune of Big Bang's "Sober." The cutest part was their old man teacher doing all the moves for them.

The lovely MC's are some of my favorite 6th graders. 

 Some groups performed in both shows:

First they did a dance to HwangTaeJi's "Mapsosa (OMG)"

Then Sistar's "Shake It"

 We had a problem with the next group's costumes in rehearsal, but they put on some more clothing for the performance and avoided a scandal of SM Entertainment proportions.

Apink's "Remember"

Jump Rope to f(x) Amber's "Shake that Brass" with some mad skills!

 Then it was my boys! They did Big Bang's "Bang Bang Bang" and it was definitely a show stopper.

But first, when I had gone to see their dress rehearsal, Moon Jung (my Korean soulmate and one of the 4th grade teachers) encountered a problem: they had sent the wrong outfits. Instead of black pants, they got these:

Moon Jung was understandably upset. I was understandably amused. 

The right costumes came in time and disaster was avoided. They then killed it. My one in the middle is my little G Dragon.

Nice Job!

More recorder, this time featuring a pianist. She was so good!

Young Shik and Seunghee were in charge of setting up like all the stands ans stuff. Moon Jung is taking pictures.

Another dance from the second graders. I love their outfits. So cute.

Then my 4th grade angel baby girls did a dance. I loved the slow dances in hanboks for this show! They were definitely among my faves.

So pretty!

Then the 6th graders finished it off with a fun song and some cool paper tricks.

After the show we were all exhausted but we teachers made our way to our trip in Anmyeongdo, an island outside of Incheon.

So Jung couldn't go because of grad school, so everyone assumed I wouldn't go either. But I wanted to go, so I hung out with Seunghee and the young teachers for the whole trip.

It was great! I enjoyed it even more than my trip last year for a variety of reasons: not so far, not so cold, not so much hiking, not so late getting back. Here are some pics! 

Beautiful sunset over the beach.

We had to "walk" (read:hike) for over an hour to get to the restaurant, but the view was so nice that I didn't mind. 

Dinner is always an adventure on these trips. Not a lot of the teachers like the raw fish, but we always end up having it. Alas.

The venn diagram of foods we eat on teacher trips and foods I don't like is a circle.

Anmyeongdo is famous for shrimp. They put them in the pot in front of you and then you cook them and watch them die, basically. But damn are they delicious. I actually liked this part of the meal. Except for the having to break the heads off myself. 

The "live" octopus. More on that later.

Spicy stew. I am put off by the dead fish in the pan, but it's pretty tasty, honestly. 

After dinner we played on the beach. We had sparklers, and an exciting event occurred. While everyone was running around with them, I felt something hot on my back and took off my jacket. I saw it smoldering so I threw it in the sand and decided to check the damage later. As it turns out, a hole got burned into the hood of my raincoat. I could have gotten mad, but it wasn't my hair or face or eyes or literally anything super important. Then everyone was laughing and freaking out about it for the rest of the trip, so it was a fun memory. The older teachers realized I could speak Korean (They forget) when they were fussing over my coat and I spoke in Korean to tell them it was okay. The Vice Principal and Principal came over to check on me the next day to make sure I was okay. The young teachers kept referencing it the rest of the trip (at least you didn't get a hole burned in you hood hahahaha etc...) and overall it was a funny moment.

On Monday everyone told So Jung "Oh Francesca is okay" and So Jung was like ????????? so I brought in the hood to show her. Now it is a joke among all.

at first it looks not terrible 

but when you look close it's totally ruined

Even at the end of the trip, the principal told me, over the loudspeaker on the bus, that she was proud of me for coming on the workshop, she hoped I had fun, and sorry about my jacket. 

Back to the mainline narrative.

Since most of the young teachers didn't like dinner we got a feast of chips and ice cream at the convenience store and chilled in our room. We even pretended to be asleep when the head teachers called us to come out to round 2. And we did some stretching and massages and other stupid drunk activities. I love the teachers at my school so it was really fun.

Some of my favorite ladies in the least flattering photo of them ever

7 of us sharing one bathroom was not fun, but we managed.

Morning came, and with it more adventures.

The venn diagram for foods Koreans eat for breakfast and foods I do not want to eat for breakfast is also a circle.

Instead of hiking this year, thank sweet baby Jesus. we went to Sudok-sa Monastery. It was adorable!

Entrance!

 It was like a 20 minute walk, which was nice. Then we just explored and hung out. Seunghee and the young teachers all link arms with me and make me feel included, and explain things to me with random frequency.

The top

So cute!

Nice view~

 

On the way back down we passed through a market street and got a terror and a treat.

In these bags and jars the bees are still alive and they are huuuuuuuuge.

Tina's Nightmare

But they take the honeycomb and give you awesome honey ice cream right there! We all enjoyed the treat.

Stylin Seunghee taking pics of the ice cream.

We made our way down a nice fall lane to our lunch venue. 

Feels like fall! Hard to believe that this is Korea in this picture. Feels like home.

Lunch!

After eating we strolled around a bit more.

I loved this abandoned structure.

After a final stroll we boarded the bus and headed home. 

All in all, it was great. I really didn't want to go after the talent show, and I was exhausted from all the Korean around me all weekend. But it was a good bonding experience, I got to see somewhere new, I made a good impression on the principal and other teachers, and I enjoyed it. What more could I ask for? I wish So Jung had been there since I love hanging out with her, but we see each other a lot and the trips are less fun for the Koreans since they have real responsibilities. Anyway, it was awesome. 

Here are some videos from the talent show and beyond.

Lion King medley

Drums

Trying live octopus!

I've had this song, "Mapsosa (OMG)" stuck in my head. It's Big Bang's Taeyang and G Dragon and Kwanghee, an MC but also a talented singer, as HwangTaeJi, and they did this song for the show Infinite Challenge. 

The lyrics and such are quite funny. And the song is amazing. It includes part of Bang Bang Bang, which we did in dance class again this week:

In honor of it again, here is my favorite performance of it.

And our practice! I'm proud to be chosen to do the difficult part of the dance with Grace and Tina. We've learned the dance 3 times now, so we get featured hehehe.

I'm wiped from everything, but what a whirlwind weekend!

I only have 3 days this week since it's my school's birthday on Halloween and we get Thursday and Friday off because my school decided that's what they wanted to do. One day is already over! 

This Friday we have our studio Halloween party, and we're performing Bang Bang Bang at it! So excited, but I also never want to hear it again.

I helped my Korean soulmate Moon Jung teach her students "Bang Bang Bang" for the talent show, so she got me these awesome presents from the SM Entertainment store: EXO-K pepero and a Super Junior tumbler!

Bring on the week! Stay well, everyone! Lots of love~~