Say Hello to My Little Friend
On Friday we had our second field trip with our students. The field trip was a spring picnic and celebration for Children’s Day. May 5th is Children’s Day in Korea. This is a day to celebrate your children. I was told this is the day on which Korean children get lots of presents rather than on Christmas. As a gift from Welton School our students all received Super Soaker-esque water guns on the day of the field trip. We saw the guns arrive at school and figured they would be sent home with the children but not played with at school. We were wrong. We packed a water gun and poncho in each student’s backpack and loaded the buses.
As we arrived at a beautiful (never thought I would use this word to describe something in Korea) park with a large lake in the middle, all the teachers quickly took notice of a bungee jumping platform high above the lake. We did attempt to go bungee jumping at the end of our picnic but it was closed for lunch. We have already planned to go back next weekend so stay tuned for that tale. The park was already swarming with school children, soon to be extremely jealous school children, when we arrived. We unloaded the buses and quickly found some shade. As soon as we found our spot, all the kids opened their backpacks and whipped out individual plastic mats, juice boxes, sushi rolls, cookies, chips, and on and on. These kids are serious picnicing pros. They chowed down their goodies and were anxiously awaiting the much anticipated water fight.
We put a raincoat on every student and made the unfortunate mistake of thinking we wouldn’t need one ourselves. The kids looked like little Ghostbusters with their water gun backpacks and protective coats. Everyone lined up to fill up their waterpacks. Once full, the mayhem began. Teachers were the first to be soaked. Of course we were given water guns a third the size of the students, so we were constantly running to reload. I have never seen these kids have so much fun. The poor children from the other schools suddenly didn’t think jump roping or hula hooping was very fun. They all stared at our students and wanted to join in the fun. Luckily our students wanted them to join in too, kind of. Several of our students were seen spraying unarmed onlookers. My little Kevin even took it upon himself to share the fun with all the bikers in the park. He stood on the biking trail, spraying anyone that rode past.
The water fight lasted for quite sometime. We were all drenched by the end of the day. The unplanned English lesson of the day was getting the kids to say “Say hello to my little friend†before firing the water gun. We found it hilarious, but I’m not sure how the director felt when we lined the students up for a group photo and we had several little Al Pacinos posing for a photo op.
The field trip was a great end to the week and probably the most fun we have had with our students.
Enjoy the photo album from our second field trip.
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Welton's enrollment should double after the other kids watching your students on this field trip! I just wonder how Jay had the biggest water gun on the field trip, I think he came prepared. Great photos!
great pics!! that had to be so much fun!! i want to join in!! btw, i am addicted to this site. i check it twice a day!! love it when you guys put new posts up! cant wait to hear about your bungee jumping adventure!! miss you guys!
So I've looked at your photo album from the field trip three times now, and it just occurred to me that, for the most part, your kids all look unhappy. What's the cultural explanation? Some of the stories would lead me to believe that they are "normal" kids (in the sense that we see kids as normal) but how can you not have fun in a water fight at that age?
Oh, and is that your director in the large "LA" shirt? Haha