As promised last night, here's the final installment of my various autumn hiking posts. This last one finds us at Sonbul Elementary on a usual Wednesday--only, instead of heading to a hiking locale in Hampyeong county, the final destination was Jindo, a rural county about 50 miles to the southwest of Hampyeong, centered on one major island with smaller ones scattered throughout. The trip took about an hour and a half, so we left immediately at 9:00 a.m. I tried to sit in the middle of the bus with the students, settling somewhere in the 3rd-4th grade neighborhood, but a co-worker (3rd grade homeroom teacher, about 45 or 50 years old, one of the funniest dudes I've met here, who has incredible English) pulled me aside and told me to sit with him. So I settled for that, and had a great conversation with him for most of the trip. But here are some of the 3rd and 4th graders getting psyched, especially this cool guy in the middle:
Unusually awake at 9:00 a.m. This is how field trips start...with sugar loading on the bus. Snacks, snacks, and more snacks.
Skipping right to our hike, here is a photo of some of my favorite kids of my week, the Sonbul 6th graders. All sort of doing their own things, with various expression(less) faces, they're one of the most entertaining cohesive units of students I see. Some quiet, some not so quiet, some that love English, some that shy away, but all genuinely really cool, kind, and smart kids.
I should also mention what the general idea of the hike was focused on, and that is this incredible corner of Jindo Island referred to as a "slow city," in which things like television, internet access, industry, and even high-quality transportation are largely understood as being unnecessary and inconvenient to the success of a small, self-sustaining area such as this. Aside from the vast expanse of farms and natural salt fields, there isn't much of the "developed world" feel that one gets in most of Korea. Except, of course, for the amazing amount of solar panels, which power the entire "slow city" and make for a great testing site and testimony to the practicality of reusable energy in rural South Korea. More total solar panels in a 1-mile radius than I've ever seen in my life. Didn't see that one coming.
Here are 6th graders hamming it up with some of these solar panels.
And we're psyched for an early lunch around 11:30 a.m. 3 of the coolest 6th graders posed for a picture with me. We helped carry about 50 giant coolers and boxes full of great food for the students, and a giant feast for the staff. Just when I thought we would eat our lunches in the parking lot with the buses, we took a 10 minute hike through some sparse pine woods and arrived here:
Yes, this is the view at lunch. Not bad for a Wednesday, eh? Students ate in a grassy area on a plateau at the top of this beach area, while the staff ate at a little gazebo. I turned around and snapped this picture. The beaches really resembled those from Wando, the site of the big foreigner beach party back in September.
And here's a sample of our great lunch. These are various rice cakes, of different colors (from brown, to pink, to some green and purple ones, as well as plenty off-whites), all stuffed with delicious things like red beans and sweet sesame paste.
And some fresh kimbap. While the word "sushi" in Korea is hardly understood as such, kimbap is, for better or worse, the same concept--rice wrapped in salty seaweed, and stuffed with (in this case) pickled radishes, Spam (or ham, but probably Spam 9 times out of 10), intensely flavored sesame leaves, and carrots. Always goes well with a little bit of kimchi, of course.
And here are the students taking to the sand after lunch. Me and my co-teacher, Ju Hui, helped organize a quick scavenger hunt for the kindergarten kids back in the pine grove, while the 1st through 6th graders had an hour or two to run, play, splash around, and just generally be kids. Of course, I joined in on the fun, and nearly got pushed in the water on several occasions.
A 1st grader making a little sand castle, which was washed away just moments later. There was nothing special about this picture when I initially took it, but the more I saw it and thought about it, it's one of my favorites from Korea. I don't know that I've taken a picture so "in the moment" and youthful...I think that accurately describes what I'm trying to get at. Field trips like this are so fun for that very reason--kids get to be kids, all day long.
These 6th grade boys loved the camera. My mainest man in front is, evidently, a little wet from playing down by the beach.
...And no trip to the beach is complete without a quick round of arm wrestling--here, the self-proclaimed strongest boy took down the class-proclaimed strongest girl in an all-out battle that went on for nearly 2 or 3 minutes.
Walking through the natural salt fields--this part of Korea is swimming (literally) with natural salt springs, and they make for a really cool place to walk around and see what tiny wildlife looks like in the mud. We played with crabs and tiny salamanders, but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the creatures. Some hand holding will have to do. And that's one more thing I should point out--one of my favorite things about Korean kids is that, no matter how young or old, they all seem to be really affectionate when they feel as though they know you well enough. I can't imagine how immature and low I would feel if someone told me, as a 12 or 13-year-old 6th grader, to hold a teacher's or classmate's hand, but they really do take to this gesture in any circumstance. It just makes you happy.
Hanging with the 6th graders. These were my best friends for the day. Yuna (the lone girl in the picture), I should mention, has been, in particular, possibly the nicest student I have at any school.
And here is Ju Hui, my co-teacher, posing for a picture near the salt fields. She seemed as happy as me and the students to have a day free of class and full of fun.
So there's a quick wrap on the hiking trips. Again, my apologies for being brief, but it's time to move on to some even cooler things. My next post, hopefully tomorrow (2 days in a row of blogging, why not make it 3?), will focus on our first big trip to Seoul. We're getting into the meat of October, and that means I'm only about a month and a half from getting all of you completely caught up on my life...so cheers to that, I guess.
Look for that in the coming hours, and I'll leave it at that for now. Hoping to do some more hiking trips when the weather gets nicer, but I certainly wouldn't be opposed to doing any of this with my students in the dead of winter. It can only mean some good times and some good pictures. And no class, which is what the kids get most excited for anyway!
Thanks again for reading, and lots of love to everyone. All the best,
-Sam Teacher
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