He only lives a five minute walk from school, so after breakfast we headed out the door. We got there before school started and I was able to meet some of his colleagues, meet his principal and then get a quick tour of the small campus.
After the tour was over, Mike settled in to finish up his lesson plan. When it was time to start teaching, we headed over to the classroom where they teach English. Today was four classes of fifth graders. Mike had put together a lesson plan that incorporated the students asking me questions and describing what I looked like. The students had to guess my name and how to spell it and then ask me where I was from, how old I was, what my favorite food was and if I had any brothers or sisters. Then they had to work together in groups to come up with five sentences about me. I guess they use the word 'Handsome' pretty liberally, but I'll take the compliment...
Mike throwing down some mad teaching skills.
And then supervising me to make sure I didn't ruin the future of these kids...
Mike taught three classes like this and then we headed to lunch. It was a traditional Korean lunch consisting of soup, kimchi, fried shrimp, and a few other things. After lunch we headed back and Mike taught one more class. We had a short break begore Mike taught a music class to a few students.
The teaching day ended and we set out to take a walk around Waegwan. We walked over to a really interesting war memorial set up on the side of a mountain. This memorial commemorates the executions of 42 American POWs by the North Koreans during the Korean War. The North had taken control of the area and were being routed by the Americans. North Korean commanders ordered the POWs shot so that they would not slow the North Koreans down.
After the memorial, we headed to find a bench on the banks of the Nakdong River to kill some time before we met some of the other native speaking English teachers that were in Waegwan from other countries doing similar jobs as the one Mike had.
We went to an amazingly delicious, local, Korean barbecue that specialized in duck. We ordered a ton of food, a good amount of local beer and a decent amount of Soju. It was really neat to be having a Korean dinner in a small town in the middle of the country with some Australians, some Brits, a Scot and a few Americans who were all there teaching English to children. It was a great way to end a great day. It is a day I will not soon forget and a day that I will always appreciate being apart of.
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