2009 Fun & Up! English Camp

Winter break for Korean public school lasts from the end of December through the beginning of February. Instead of being allowed to take the long break and relax, most English teachers are forced to attend one of the many Metropolitan Office of Education sponsored Winter English Camps. The camp we were selected to attend was a 6th and 4th grade camp located in Gyeongju, about an hour north of Ulsan. The camp was at Sorabol College, where we had orientation/H1N1 quarantine when we first arrived in Korea. We spent the first 3 weeks of January there, teaching Monday - Friday, 10+ hours a day. We would meet the bus near our apartment every Monday morning, then stay in the dorms until Friday when it was time to load back up on the buses. It sounds like hell, but it wasn't that bad...

Reena, Teresa & Andrew at Folk Dance

Every afternoon, we grouped together with other teachers to do an afternoon activity, such as watching a movie, playing a mini-Olympics game or folk dancing. Judy and Andrew were lucky enough to land spots on the folk dancing team!

(Andrew made the mistake of wearing that stupid monkey hat all day for the first few days, which basically forced him to wear it for the entire camp. He was known as 'monkey teacher,' 'gorilla teacher,' or, his favorite, 'handsome gorilla.' The students also thought he was wearing it to hide that he was bald or had a skin disease, so it became quite the mystery until he finally took it off.)

"Please don't stop the music..." - Rihanna

Before dancing each day, one of the Korean teachers
led the students in an incredible warm up/stretch routine
to Rihanna's hit song. It was amazing!

Work it gurl!

Ahahahahahahaha!

During the second or third week of camp, one of
the students thought he was really cool and jumped
onto the roof of this shed, then fell through!
(The lil' punk wasn't injured in the fall, don't worry.)

From the bus on the way home one Friday, we saw this
man out for a stroll about a block from the hospital.
What better time and place to light up?!

This is a student from Andrew's school
participating in the mini-Olympics.

If only the kids shared Dave's enthusiasm...

Somehow they turned this into a mini-Olympics event

This girl was the devil.
Andrew and his co-teacher lovingly referred to her as, "Pink Glasses B***h."

The side of a bus in the parking lot.
What?

Judy's Class - Vancouver

(To aid in the disorganization of the camp, each class and classroom was named after an English speaking city. The students were only told city names and the teachers only had room numbers, so no one knew where they were supposed to be.)

Some of Judy's boys. The one in the purple hooded sweatshirt was one of her best students.

And some of her girls. One evening, the girl flashing the peace sign ripped the butt of her pants!

Toronto, Andrew's Class

During each break between classes, the students would always draw Andrew a picture.

One morning, he walked in to find this on the chalkboard!

On the last day, as he was walking out of class to go home, this kid turned to Andrew and said, "I wish you and Judy travel everywhere. I'll see you in the heavens!" That was the most he ever said in English!

Judy's boys at lunch

Judy playing Scattergories, her evening activity

The last class of the night was a two hour evening activity. The teachers paired up and created fun activities for the students to give them a break from the all the studying. Judy and Teresa did Scattergories, which was a big hit.

Other evening activities included crafts...

...and sandwich making.

This boy, Lan, is another student from Andrew's school,
and is the sweetest and cutest child alive.
He might be coming home with us.

Andrew and Dave taught card games as their evening activity.
They taught Black Jack, Crazy 8's, and Gin Rummy to the students.

Not happy!

At the end of camp, we had a talent show where the students were allowed to show off their skills if they liked. Many students got together with their friends and preformed K-Pop dances which were pretty amazing. Some entire classes even did songs together or acted out skits. For only practicing a few days, the talent show actually turned out surprisingly well.

Two of the 4th graders

Dave and Teresa

This kid was great! He loved speaking English...

One of Andrew's

Lan again. God, this kid is adorable!

Judy and Dave were the MC's for the event!

This was another amazing kid. He was a genius, and could dance like you wouldn't believe.

The girls got pretty scary by the end of camp.

On the last day, the teachers couldn't walk down
the hallway without being accosted by flocks of
them wanting to take pictures of them on their cell
phones and have them sign their camp shirts.

They were like the paparazzi,
only scarier and more in-yo-face!

Korean Medicine is the Best Medicine!

This is a photo of Andrew after a session at his co-teacher's husband's Traditional Korean Medicine Clinic. This procedure, called 부항 (buhang - pronounced boo-hong), is intended to relieve muscle soreness/stiffness/pain/etc. and help to cleanse the body of toxins and impurities. Koreans also employ this procedure to treat colds, flues and other respiratory illnesses. Buhang involves Chinese tea cups and an open flame to create suction. The cup is held upside down over the flame to heat the glass and collect the heated air. Once sufficiently heated, it is immediately applied to the skin. As the warm air inside the cup cools and contracts, it creates a suction that pulls the skin into the cup. Andrew's prescribed session was 25 cups for 20 minutes. The whole procedure was done while he was laying on a heated bed/table set at 30 degrees Celsius (86°F) and under a row of orange, glowing heat lamps, like the fries at Burger King. The heat and sweating is to further aid in flushing toxins from the body.

After Andrew's Buhang session, he was essentially unable to do anything for a few days without pain. Wearing clothes was painful enough, so sitting back in chairs and sleeping were out of the question. According to the doctor, Andrew's buhang marks were so severe and sensitive because his skin (that of white people) is "weak like baby!"

Needless to say, Andrew will continue to visit Dr. Kim's clinic for more traditional treatments. Stay tuned!

Meeting Shin's Husband

Shin's husband works for Hyundai Heavy Industries in Qatar, and when he came home in December, we got the chance to meet him.

We met for dinner, where we had Korean sashimi. Sashimi isn't too exciting, but one of the side dishes was live octopus, which was very exciting. It is served on a plate piled with moving, wriggling tentacles! You just grab them (or they grab you), dip them in chill sauce, and pop them in your mouth. They continue squirming through the first couple of chews...

----- & Shin
(no idea what his name is...)

Judy & Andrew

The women

The men

After dinner, which involved much sojo and wine,
we headed to a singing room in true, Korean style.

Wish we remembered what song was being butchered right here!

We think this was Mariah Carey's, 'Hero.'

Oh Shin!

Again, wish we remembered what song...

Learning (and Mastering) the Art of 김밥

김밥

Gimbap

Gimbap is a typical Korean snack, like a sushi roll, but filled with ham/spam, beef or tuna, fried egg, carrots, sauteed spinach, Korean mountain weeds and pickled radish.

The description sounds gross, but gimbap can actually be pretty good. The plain ham gimbap, often called 'well-being gimbap' is the worst and the cheapest. The low-quality Korean 'spam' takes over the flavor and makes them taste a little dirty. The tuna gimbap (참치김밥 /pronounced cham-chi gim-bap) is by far the best. It tastes like canned tuna and mayo wrapped in rice and seaweed, delicious!

For a Home Visit program, we went to Shin's house to learn how to make them. Shin is the teacher from Andrew's school that gives him a ride each morning, and just an all around amazing woman. The gimbap we prepared at her house had beef, egg, carrots, spinach, mountain weeds and radish.

Learning to fill and roll them.
The key is to spread the rice gently.
"Soft, soft, soft!" Shin repeatedly scolded.

Andrew, Shin & Judy

Judy slicing and arranging the gimbap on a platter

Iron Chef Judy slicing the gimbap

신은영 & 수현
Shin and her youngest daughter, Su-Hyun

Ready to eat!
----------

A week or so after, we decided to have our own gimbap dinner, Judy & Andrew style. Instead of the traditional ingredients, we used various mixes of rotisserie chicken, tuna, breaded & fried pork cutlet (돈까스 / pronounced don-kat-su or don-kats), egg, cucumber, avocado, corn and red pepper. We also tossed ketchup, honey mustard, wasabi and mayonnaise into the mix...

Dustin Hoffman at our work table.

Please note the microwavable, single servings of
sticky rice on the left side of the table, awesome!

Rolled and ready for slicing

Mmmm! Let's eat!

Our American-ized versions of gimbap were good,
but didn't turn out quite as delicious as we had hoped.
The best one ended up being the donkatsu, corn and ketchup!