Happy Children's Day

I have finally found one thing I love about the Korean culture and that is their celebration towards children. Unlike home where we celebrate Cinco de Mayo, Korea celebrates children’s day on May 5th, and it is honestly the best day EVER. Children have the day off from school which means teachers do as well and they simply get to be kids on this day.
On Children’s Eve, Bambini (my school) had a little celebration in toast to all the children. We spent the day playing, stuffing our faces with sweets and exchanging gifts, it was soooo great. Our day started with a few games down in the gym room then we made tasty parfaits in our classrooms. Now normally we would make it with yogurt and fruit but these parfaits were a little different and maybe a bit better. The kids had sugar cereals, ice cream, cocktail fruit and chocolate sticks to put in their parfait cups, they loved it. After they finished their parfaits they each got to have their faces painted. Following face painting the children colored for fifteen minutes till it was lunch time. Now lunch time was sort of a joke since we just had those parfaits but oh no we must eat lunch and to conclude lunch lets give the children cookies and orange juice; can I say sugar high. To burn some of their sugar high off we had a treasure hunt down in the gym room where they had to find matching pieces of paper in exchange for a pencil or an eraser. With some time to spare before the day was over the kids played play dough and I give them their gifts. Oh and did I mention I got a little gift from my boy Daniel, who knew teachers could get gifts on children’s day. And this concludes Children’s Eve, the easiest day of teaching yet.
For Children’s Day I spent the morning relaxing in bed reading before I finally headed out exploring a new neighborhood of Seoul with Alison. Originally we were going to go hiking but for some reason or another most everyone bailed. Although Alison and I could have still gone hiking we opted to explore Seoul because we had so much fun the other day doing it and well no one else really seems to enjoy it as much as we do.
Today we ventured out to Gwanghwamun, which is an area we had explored briefly one random evening when we got on the bus we needed in the wrong direction. Catching that same bus we headed to Gwanghwamun but got off a bit before simply because we saw this stream that looked calming. Walking a long Cheonggyecheon Stream we got flashbacks to when we were in San Antonio walking a long the river walk. This stream is very similar and it was packed with families enjoying this wonderful holiday. Along the stream under one of the bridges there was a collection of photographs from Algeria which has now convinced us it is a must see place. The pictures were amazing which makes me only think Algeria must be a gorgeous country. Upon arriving to the end of the stream there is this big red and blue seashell statue.
From here we just started walking aimlessly down various streets, not sure where we were headed or what we would find. What we did end up finding is another Hammering Man just like the one outside of the Seattle Art Museum, so random. Without knowing it we were right outside the Seoul Museum of History, which has a lovely floor water spout fountain that tones of children were playing in. Also they had a few booths with children’s activities one of them being big cardboard puzzle pieces that when put together made a 3D temple arch way and fortress wall, it was so intricut. Continuing on we stumbled upon several palaces, police museum, had an ice cream in Sajik Park, and walked down Insa-dong, Seoul’s most famous local vending market. Finishing our walk down Insa-dong we randomly ended up on the same street we got dropped off at by the bus, which fortunately for us came in our favor. Tired from walking for four hours we decided to catch a bus back home. Unlike home where you generally can catch the same bus on the opposite side of the street to go home this is not the case here. Needing to figure out what bus would take us home we found an information office and saved our self the stress of figuring it out ourselves and asked for help. Luckily the bus we needed was right outside the information office and our ride home was smooth and easy. Today was a wonderful relaxing day and I owe it all to Children’s Day.