"Dear. Joseph."
"Hello, Joseph. We are fifth grade classroom number 6.
Happy Teacher's Day! Thank you for teach us. We're learning fun for you. When we study with you, we're happy.
Please teach us good. We'll learn hard. And take care. Bye-bye.'
This Friday is Buddha's Birthday. Last weekend there was a huge Lotus Lantern Festival in Seoul. In typical Korean fashion, the streets were uncomfortably packed. We have Friday off, so we are going with some friends down to Busan for the long weekend. This will be our first trip to the country's second largest city located on t southern coast across from Japan.
Children's Day was on the fifth of this month, and Sami and I were lucky enough to have a five day weekend (many schools only had the Wednesday off). During this time, we visited Shanghai where we stopped by the World Expo, took a night river tour of the city, saw the acrobats, ate the dumplings, and much more which I plan on re-capping over the next series of entries.
We each had received permission to leave at 2:00 on Tuesday, instead of the usual 4:40 p.m., in order to make it to the airport in time for the 6:30 p.m. flight. I was ok with this because Tuesday is a full day for me. I would have classes up until it was time to leave which meant that the time would fly by. So when 10:00 a.m. rolled around any both my co-teacher and my 9:00 a.m. class hadn'td shown up, I figured something must have been going on. I am sure it sounds weird to read what I just wrote, but please keep in mind that I am always the last person to know what is going on. It is just something I have accepted. Just today I found out that I will be judging speeches tomorrow afternoon and one of my three classes has been moved. Whatever. Just keep feeding me tasties at lunch time and let me do yoga in the conference room for free with the other teachers on Friday.
Anyway, by 10 a.m. I decided to mosey on down the stairs and outside to the soccer field/track. Sure enough, half of the school was outside wearing their grade color (first grade: blue; second grade: neon green; third grade: yellow; fourth grade: orange)- some were running sprints and others were on the field doing some sort of relay with a giant beach ball. Apparently, my school's "Sports Day" was taking place.
I went back inside and put on my running shoes- hey, this might not go as fast as my classes, but it isn't a bad way to spend a last day before vacation. I jumped in and started timing the sprinters, escorting the first, second and third place runners to the correct line and ushering the loser kids away from my sight.
There wasn't a race that went by where a lost kiddo or two didn't stray into the lanes right in front of the oncoming sprinters. Many of the competitors mistakenly stopped before the finish line and all wore their soccer cleats, which I don't think is the best decision when running on a cement track.
The majority of the kids had smiles on their faces and weren't quite sure if they wanted to run fast, or just run along side their friends. Every now and then a serious competitor would come barreling down with a look of determination. When these kids broke the tape signifying a first place finish, they were inevitably met by a proud parent holding a camera with a lens the length of my arm.
In addition to herding the kittens into lines, I also got to fire the starter pistol for the relays and participate in a game with the parents and my principal. In this game the center circle of the soccer field was covered with cardstock which was red on one side and white on the other. My team's job was to turn all of the cards to red, while the the other team attempted to turn them white. When the whistle blew, the referee counted and their were more white cards than red. My team had lost. I felt disgraced. In hindsight, I should have just picked up all the cards and then held onto them until the last second. Live and learn.
On the subway to the airport, we met a nice elderly man in a Sean John shirt. He told us all about his world travels- how he was deported in Australia and robbed in Paris. It is strange, we never used to get approached by Koreans, but now it seems like we can't go anywhere without someone wanting to engage in conversation. It is either that the weather is changing or they can sense that we've been here for awhile.
At the airport, we had the typical argument about food. I was promised Subway, which I had been craving since last Sunday's episode of "The Biggest Loser" in which Subway paid for a sponsorship so the former fatties were obligated to put one of the '6 grams of fat or less' sandwiches down. Of course, when we got near our gate their was no Subway to be found- obviously this was Sami's fault. We settled for a delicious bowl of pho not knowing that we would later be served dinner on our 2 and a half hour flight (Asian airlines kick ass!).
On the plane, we both got a good laugh out of an advertisement for China Southern flight attendants. I wonder how well this would go over in the U.S.?
When we got off the plane, we were greeted by Haibao, the mascot of World Expo 2010. This was the first of about 100,000 Haibao sightings to come.
After customs, we hopped on the Maglev train- the fastest train in the world. During certain times of the day, it goes as fast as 413 km/hr- or about 286 mph (or roughly 5 million times faster than a fat fourth grade Korean girl on Sports Day). It shuttles people 18 miles to the airport in 7 minutes. When I worked in Portland and lived in Beaverton, it routinely took over an hour to go 18 miles!
Our hotel was not very far from the subway station in the heart of East Nianxing Rd in The Bund district. This meant that we only had to listen two people ask us if we want to buy a watch or a bag, and not two dozen.
We entered the hotel and walked toward the front desk. There was a European tourist arguing with the Chinese clerk. It is times like these where I am glad English is my first language. It is difficult enough trying to converse with someone using their second language. Imagine if both of you were using your second.
We went up to our room and unpacked our bags. It was around 9:00 p.m. when we looked outside at the neon red lights of Shanghai and decided to head out into the unknown.
Coming in Part 2- Acrobats and an attempted street scam
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