Wisely Choice: if it is you when it is necessary to choose either, it does very

After having to slave through 3 days of work the school had its picnic day. I was given the choice to go with any group I wanted and chose to go with my students from last year because a) they aren't as annoying and b) it was to a place I hadn't been before. We went to Children's Park to wander through the nature and see an amusement park. We we got there it was packed with students from tons of schools, I guess there aren't many options in Busan. While many of these schools have foreign English teachers working at their schools, every kid seemed to have this need to say "HI!!!!" to me. I decided early on that I was going to pretend that I was Chinese so I always answered "Nee-how" and received some confused looks. It's the little things that bring joy to my currently dull life.

After a 20 minute hike we sat down for some food and then on to some rides. I went on the roller coaster but it left much to be desired. The entire ride, from the slow rise to the final jolting stop couldn't have been more than a minute. The only alarming thing was that the seatbelt was made for a Korean which meant that there was no way it was going to fit me. I just held on tight and hoped for the best. The picnic ended with me heading off to a theater by myself and watching Spiderman 3...meh.

The following day was Sports Day. It was just like last semester's but this time we teachers played the student teachers (all guys, girls don't play sports here, they just sit under their umbrellas and get upset at harmless jokes foreign teachers make). I got things rolling with the first goal of the game (and of my brief career) but also brought things to a crashing halt.


I have now (to my knowledge) broken two bones in my life. No, neither were mine, but I was the direct cause. This time round an opposing player and I kicked the ball at the exact same time on exactly opposite sides. He went down like a sack of bricks, I ran off to get my inhaler. Later on someone kicked the hell out of my shin (sans guard) and they went down as well. Am I just tough or are soccer players wimps?

My worst injury of the day ended up being sunburn.

That evening I was invited to go to a K-Pop concert. For those of you that don't know, K-pop is "the phenomena that has spread across the world highlighting Korea's Entertainment prowess." I have wanted to go for some time so was quite excited (meh) when I got the chance.

The concert was being held at the university right by my school so I saw a lot of my students there and some of the student teachers, including the one whose foot busted on me. He was all smiles though so I didn't feel too guilty about his weakness.

The show started with a bunch of acts from the school. It is a Maritime school (like mine) so there were lots of people in uniforms about. The acts ranged from "My god, what are they doing up there" to "Hey, they aren't too bad". Just before the main act was a fireworks displace set to "Rock Me Like A Hurricane". Unfortunately the show only lasted halfway though the song.

Everybody was acting civilly sitting in plastic patio chairs until the main act came out. Then it became a mad crush to get as close to her as possible. It was a sea (if that sea was Galilee) college guys in military type uniforms and middle school girls in their uniforms all pushing and shoving to get closer.


They fist thing I noticed was the singer's (no idea what her name is) huge nose. Koreans have small usually flat noses but this honker looked more fitting on Barbara Streisand. She also looked to have some other "enhancements". She didn't even look Korean and I must admit I was disappointed. My disappointment grew when I realized I actually recognized a couple of her songs (shudder) and was tapping along.



It was actually a bit difficult to see her because everyone, yes everyone, was recording her performance on the cellphones. These are Korean phones which make American phones look like those huge Zach Morrison's of the 80's.


After 4 short songs and a little bit of banter the "artist" ran off the stage and into a waiting van that rushed her away. So much for an "Een-core".