K-Water Field Trips - Chuncheon, South Korea

For three Saturdays, our school took three groups of students to one of the K-Water headquarters. At the headquarters in Chuncheon, there is the 소양강댐 (Soyang Gang Dam) and the soyang River. Our lessons for those weeks were about ecology and the environment, so we had words like: river, lake, mountain, rock, tree, etc. It was a good lesson.

But our director wanted us to teach the kids a song. So I was in charge of finding a song. I found a few that seemed suitable for all the kids' age and English level, but after teaching the song for six weeks, I was sick and tired of singing that song. I will NEVER sing "If All the Little Raindrops" again in my life. I promise that. But we made actions so we could help the kids remember the words and that worked. But after singing it for six weeks, the kids also got sick of singing that song. I don't blame them.

I really didn't mind the K-Water weekends. We would have to work Monday-Saturday, but our boss would give us Sunday and Monday off, so the following week would be a workweek from Tuesday-Friday. Can't really complain about that.

So we would all load the bus between 8:30 and 9 in the morning and take the one-hour trek to Chuncheon. Then most of the day, the kids spoke Korean, so each teacher had a helper (usually a middle school student that spoke decent English so if we gave the kids instructions, the older helper could interpret). That was pretty nifty.

We took the bus to the top of the dam where you could view the picturesque river flowing through the mountains. It was really beautiful up there.

I always tried to gather my group of students so I could take a picture with them, but with kids running around everywhere, it's not the easiest task to accomplish as a teacher.

We would always eat dalkgalbi for lunch because Chuncheon is best known for its delicious dalkgalbi. NOM NOM NOM! K-Water gives a lot of money to our school, so K-Water/the school paid for everyone's lunch. I am very lucky to be working at this school.

After lunch we went to the water museum where most of the signs were yet again in Korean. So I just made stuff up in English so it looked like I knew what I was talking about. Usually I just make a joke and they all laugh, laughter is the best medicine (wow, that was a lame statement!).

There was always some sort of concert happening in the plaza outside the museum, so we would watch that for a while. One time it was a magic show where one of our students was selected to go up and preform with the magician. The kid that was selected was stubborn sometimes, so if he didn't get his way, he would get physical and violent. AND, he is in Tae Kwon Do, so I'm sure he can kick some serious ass. So he attempted to kick the magician, but all was good. I slowly shook my head in the audience. But now I'm laughing about it.

Another time we were there, there were some drummers preforming. Some of our students were yet again selected to get to bang some drumsticks on some big blue barrels. Then I heard the announcer say "영어선생님" and I knew exactly what that meant. She wanted an english teacher to come up too. then all of a sudden the kids started chanting "Andrew Teacher, Andrew Teacher." I was actually nervous.

All was well. It was a lot of fun, although it looks like I had no idea what I was doing. But I rock at music and rock at life, so of course I was good.

Then to get home, we took a boat from Chuncheon to Yanggu, which was maybe half an hour. the buses met us in Yanggu and we drove home the forty minutes to Inje from Yanggu.

We had some pretty fun Saturdays and it really was a fun change of pace from just working the regular workweek. I know the kids liked it too.