Jangsan Night Hike

Before we even moved to Busan, we had been googling pictures of Busan and found this beautiful picture at night of the Gwangan Bridge and a large area of Busan. Once we moved here we discovered that the picture had been taken from the mountain right behind our apartment. Ever since we saw that picture, Justin has had a goal of seeing that view himself.

We've seen it several times during the day, but with our time here quickly coming to an end, and with our good friends Erik and Breckan about to leave, Justin and Erik decided to hike up on Friday night. They went up before sunset and got some great pictures!

Sunset behind Jangsan Mountain

Gwangan Bridge

Erik and Justin

Invention Convention

Justin was in charge of the school's Invention Convention again this year. He did a great job (I know I'm partial, but others said so too) and so did the kids.

This year the K-2nd graders did a Learning Fair where they had to research something they were interested in and put a poster together about it. Grades 3-5 did the Invention Convention. They had to think of a problem and a way to fix it. Our students are SO clever! Justin's class received the best average score on their inventions and two of his students placed 2nd and 3rd overall! Here are some of the projects!

Learning Fair Project

1st Grader Lauren did this one - she told me she has 10 dogs on her farm!

Kindergarten student Ian made this one.

Invention Convention. I love the names.

Kindergarten presented all of their projects to us.

Superhero Day!

Today was Superhero Day. Our Elementary Teachers are AWESOME about dressing up all the time, and today was no exception. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

Prep the night before

"Cat Lady" and Captain America

Cat Lady and Towel Man

I'm going to miss teaching with this girl - Love you Elizabeth...errrr...Batwoman!

Batman

PreK 3 and K4 LOVES Superheroes!

The kids kept telling me that I was Captain America's Mom. Too funny. I love his serious face...

BFS Sport's Banquet

With the end of the year comes the BFS Sport's Banquet. It's held at a local buffet and the coaches get to hand out MVP and Most Improved Awards. It's a lot of fun - we enjoyed hanging out with our team one last time! Shout out to the Lady Sharks for making our jobs a LOT of fun! :)

Most Improved - Kyungeun!! 

MVP - Jenny!

Part of our team. Laura and I were noticing how we're actually tanner than ALL of them. YES! :)

The girl in the front right, Anne, is the BFS Female Athlete of the Year!

Pete The Cat

My class and the other preschool class worked with the BFS Media class to make a video of our Pete the Cat production! Our kids are SO CUTE!

Igidae Park

My Korean co-worker and friend, Ms. Han, invited us along with Laura to her house for lunch this weekend. She made us a fantastic Korean noodle and vegetable soup with some typical Korean side dishes. After lunch she drove us over to Igidae Park.

Igidae Park is a scenic trail along the coast with beautiful views looking back towards the Gwangan Bridge and Haeundae. It was a great walk and very refreshing to feel "out of the city" for a bit.

Looking back toward Haeundae

Gwangan Bridge and Marine City with Jangsan Mountain in the background (the mountain we see from our apartment)

with Ms. Han and her younger daughter, Ludia

Damyang Bamboo Forest

This weekend we had two extra days off for Children's Day and Buddha's birthday. We took advantage of the extra time by getting out of Busan for two days with our good friends Erik and Breckan. We booked bus tickets to Gwangju, a city 4 hours west of us, and from there took another intercity bus to a small town where there is a bamboo forest. We walked around the forest and surrounding area for a bit and even tried bamboo ice cream!

 

 

 

 

 

Playing traditional Korean games

 

Our "hotel" was an adventure all on its own. Since it was a holiday and we were planning this all last minute, it was difficult to find a place to stay. I eventually found this hotel that I thought was right in the same town as the bamboo forest. Nope. It was yet another 40 minute taxi ride away. Thankfully we got there without any problems.

This "hotel" quickly became our favorite part of the weekend. We each had our own little cabin/hotel room with a beautiful view of the mountains.

Our little cabin in the woods

 

Space TV

 

The view from our room

 

Food options were limited, and of course we were there in time for dinner. After Erik spent several minutes speaking "hanglish" (Hanguel + English) on the phone with a lady who spoke broken English and was translating for the Korean man at the hotel, we discovered that we couldn't walk anywhere (too far!) and no one would deliver. Therefore our options were "mud chicken soup" or a whole chicken. We opted for the whole chicken, but we were definitely not anticipating the pterodactyl-looking pot of "food" we were served. We hardly got any meat off the thing, so thankfully we had brought plenty of snacks! It definitely made a great story that we laughed about a lot the next day (once we had eaten a real meal!).

We're pretty sure our whole chicken was broken into a bunch of pieces and thrown into the pot to be cooked.

Disgusting. Breckan deemed these pterodactyl feet rather than chicken feet.

We spent hours playing Ticket-to-ride, and Breckan and I graciously let the boys win a few games so they could book their self-esteem. HA.

The next morning we got ourselves back to Gwangju and took a bus back to Busan and then made tacos together for Cinco de Mayo.

Erik and Breckan :)

 

A very successful, fun weekend indeed! We are cherishing our last few weeks with these friends and are so grateful for them and are blessed by their friendship!