my korean camp experience…

deery-lou.
howdy-ho all. sorry for the delay but i've been having some problems with the site for the past three days. however, everything seems to be working now. YEAH!!

so this past weekend was our ils camp retreat. it was quite unlike camp in the u.s. mainly because we stayed in a high rise. and i was so looking forward to a cozy little korean cabin. the rooms were on big space with a wardrobe, bathroom, and blankets to use as beds, oh my! i actually had a reallly fun time. it was great to play with the children in the water and spend the day out in the sunshine. one thing i did notice is that the korean men show more skin than the woman. all the woman, even though they had on bathing suits, kept their shorts and tops on in the water. go figure. a bit strange but who am i too judge. here's a rundown of the camping life.

friday, august 12, 8am: i arrived at ils with christine and anna. immediately went to holly's to get an ice coffee.

8:30am: the students started to file in

8:45am: i was given my group assignment [chris, peter, erik, ben, mike, james, bryant]

9:15am: my group heading down to board the bus

9:30am: we departed for camp. the camp was held in dogno, asan. apparently there are hot springs in the area although i never had a change to visit them. maybe next time.

10:30am: rest stop tiime. i had to escort zander and jeff to the restroom. afterwards i bought a waffle with syrup and butter spread. very yummy!!1

10:50am: we left the reststop. the students kept giving us all kinds of candy. they sure do like to share.

11:30am: we arrived at camp. we filed out into the blazing heat and lined up in front of the building. here we had to listen to the camp counselors go on and on. i have no idea what was said because it was all in korean.

11:45am: we headed up into our luxury rooms [NOT!]. our beds where blankets on the floor. it was kind of like staying in a youth hostil. actually i think it is a youth hostil.

12:30pm: lunch time. the students had to line up in the hall. here the counselor made them repeat something over and over and finally lead us down to the mess hall. outside of the mess hall the students had to line up again. its all very military-esque. inside the students marched one by one. the got their chopsticks, spoons and then were served food assembly line style. then they were directed to their seats. not realizing that there was a special table for teachers we stood in line with the students to get food. the meal consisted of rice and some kind of gravy sauce, corn, kimchi, a bread patty with ketchup, soup, and a yogurt drink. it was edible to say the least. after eating we filed out and had to give our trays to the clean up crew. this was tricky because if you didn't act fast you ended up getting splattered with bits of food as the man banged the metal tray against the garbage shoot. needless to say i got splashed.

1pm-2pm: this was rest time before going to the pool. i made my bed on the floor on listened to music.

2pm: the students were once again lined up in the hall before going to the pool. then they were lead outside where we stood again for a little bit and then lead off to the pool area. before going to the pool the students had to partake in a mini obstacle course. with so many students it was taking forever. it was fun to watch but i wanted to go to the pool. after the obstacle course they were lead to a pavillion where they had to do some exercises. when the exercises and speeches were over the students had to line up their shoes and then they followed the counselor to the pool area. there was one pool with a current that went in a giant circle, a water slide, and another wading pool for little kids to play. the current pool was probably the deepest of them all. it came up to my neck. i spent most of my day in the current pool. sometimes by myself, sometimes carrying jeff around, and other times just swimming with random students. i made lots of friends with children not from our school too. every once in awhile i'd hear a tiny voice say "hi. what's your name. nice to meet you". i had one kid follow me around for a bit. how cute. as i was going around and around in the current pool i'd watch the lifeguards. the were all very cute. i busted on you kept taking pictures of myself. on one of my passes he was checking himself out in his sunglasses. these koreans definitely like to look at themselves. at one part of the current pool these a stream of hot water that comes out into the pool. i stopped there at every passing. mainly for the hot water which felt good and nothing because the lifeguard stationed there. i should point out that 95% of the people there all had swim caps on and goggles. goggles are a definite must next time cuz there is so much chlorine in that pool that it made my eyes burn. i did go into the wading pool for a little bit but it was too much. i kept getting attacked by students especially sue. when she wasn't asking me to chase her she had a death grip around my neck. all in all a fun day.

5pm: pool time was over. after the students gathered up their shoes and the counselor made sure everyone was there we went back to the room. it was now shower time and rest time before dinner.

6pm: dinner time. back to the mess hall. this time we learned of the special teacher table of food. there was more of a variety and we got to serve ourselves. the food at dinner was pretty decent. there was some kind of cabbage and beef, rice, sweet potato noodles, garlic stems, kimchi, and soup. i got splashed again with food. damn him. after dinner horace and i met the only other foreigner there. his name was sam and he'd only been in korea for 6 months. we talked with him for awhile and then back to our room where we waited for our next outing…the bonfire.

7:10pm: the students lined up again to get ready to go. here we heard more blah, blah, blah from the counselor until we were lead outside and to the area where the bonfire was being held. once it got dark they lite the bonfire. songs were sang, some games and contests were played. i think we were doing fairly well because i kept hearing the mc saying "ils". there was also a dance off for the teachers of the various schools on stage. i got up there we christine, jean, and anna. unfortunately we didn't do too well. i think its because i was too good of a dancer. just kidding. the whole bonfire outing lasted about 2 hours.

9pm: we made our way down to the basement. it was haunted house time. spooky. before going into the haunted basement we had to listen to more blah, blah, blah. this time the guy talking was very strict. he kept yelling at the all the kids to be quiet. finally it was time to go down to the haunted house. i ended up going through the haunted house with daniel attached to my back, peter clinging to one arm, and someone else on the other. it was actually quite comically seeing that i could hardly move. they had people dressed up that would jump out and scare the kids. they screamed through the whole thing.

10:30pm: bed time. i had a hard time trying to sleep. finally with the aid of kristin hersh and my ipod i managed to succumb to sleep.


saturday, august 13, 6:30am: wake up call.

7am: the day started off very early with breakfast. there's nothing like some good old breakfast squid to get you going in the morning. that's exactly what we had plus some kind of egg thing. its truly amazing at how i don't even flinch at that that kind of stuff anymore. you would have thought that i'd be eating squid, kimchi, seaweed, and rice for breakfast. what happened to pancakes and bacon?

8am: it was games time for the students down in the moldy smelling basement. they had to build something with blocks. it was quite boring. to occupy my time i started to make an apartment building.

8:50: off the pool. first stop the pavillion for exercising. bored now!!! today i wanted a raft for the current pool. the only problem was that i had to buy one for 8,000 won. i opted not too. i spent most of the day in the current pool with mike who kept riding on my back. i did manage to get on the waterslide. although no one told me how swallow the pool at the end was. i completely bruised one knee and scraped the other one. i did some time in the kiddie pool too. but again i could only stand it for a little while. those little kids take too much out of you. so it was back to the current pool where i spent the rest of the day having splash and dunking fights with teachers christine and anna, and students kevin, mike, and kevins friend. i must say i had a blast. i'm just a giant kid at heart.

11am: pool time was over. we shuffled back to the room, showered, packed, and waited for the lunch call.

noon: lunch time. it was the same lunch as the day before. although at the teacher table we had some extra stuff. i piled a load of what i thought was noodles and peppers on my plate. to my surprise they were tiny little fishies. i tired them but didn't really like them. however i did like the dried shrimp where you ate the shell and all. very tastey. my now i had mastered the tray handoff and sprint and got to put it to use one more time. i made it through with no food splatter.

12:30pm: we boarded the bus for our return home. i listened to music the whole ride back. most of the students slept. there was no rest stop this time.

2:30pm: we arrive back in ansan. i immediately headed off to taekwondo. class was tough cuz i was really tired. my kwanganim keeps telling me to practice hard.

4pm: we all my camping crap i started to head for home. i stopped at holly's coffee and got a blueberry iyote, which is a frozen yogurt drink. it was soooooo good.

6pm: i watched the interpreter with nicole kidman and sean penn. it was pretty decent.

9pm: bedtime

that's sums up my korean camp experience. coming up…my quest for the mystic pyramid.

be well…




snaps from ils camp

links

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