Annual Picnic

Every year at my school, the kindergarten class goes on a fall picnic. This was our field trip for October. It was the first time we'd been required to do something for the school on a weekend. The picnic was scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 9th from 9am-5pm. YES. ALL DAY SATURDAY. I found that most of my coworkers were complaining about this "extra" time demand from the school, but to be honest, I was looking forward to it. A day out of Seoul, at a huge arboretum and park, picnic with Korean food, hanging out with my coworkers (who I love,) and getting to play with my lil kindys?? Sounds like an excellent way to spend a Saturday.
Unfortunately getting out of Seoul was slightly horrendous as the traffic on a weekend here is about four times what it is in Chicago. It took us two hours to get to a destination which should've taken 40 minutes. That's always fun when you're on a bus with lots of kids and the traffic is stop and go and the sun is beating on your face. But I digress.

We get there and the first activity is picking sweet potatoes! Yes, the lil munchkins are basically going to farm. So the owner of the land and some of his coworkers give a lesson to all the kiddies on how to properly pick potatoes. And then they give them all their own hoes. Yes, they give a bunch of 5 year-olds, hand-held, sharp, dangerous hoes and tell them to go to work on the potatoes. The boys--workin for it!

I was more fearful about the hoeing for some kids as opposed to others. However, somehow I feel as though in Korea, even when things seem completely backasswards to me, they always seem to work out. So anyway, away they go, finding the stems, hoeing away at the ground, and pulling out huge sweet potatoes. Tony gettin after it

Willy, showing off his first potato!

They were SO proud!! It was really cute. The best part--the kids got to take their potatoes home.

Next stop: arboretum for lunch. Field trip lunches are always enjoyable. Mostly because I get to try all this homemade Korean food. The kids are so sweet and incredibly generous...always offering you a roll of their kimbop while their tiny little mouths are overflowing with rice. This time, one of my kindy moms made us bulgogi and japchae......Ummm yum?! Then after they eat their lunches they all pull out these ridiculous snacks and then we get to try all those too. Thanks mommies.Brandy and I with Rosemary class

Post lunch the kids and teachers alike get to run free. It is the most gorgeous fall day, with only a couple of puffy clouds floating throughout the blue sky. Then the kids get a tour of one of the farm's greenhouses. Following that we move onto the next major activity: making soap.Getting a lesson on soap making

Denny and his soap (can you tell he's the biggest trouble maker I have??)

The kids got to pick what colors, shapes, and scent they'd like to make their soap. I made some too.

Afterward it's back to the picnic area for snack time. Yes, more funky snacks like chips of all sorts (including shrimp and squid flavored ones,) fruit, cookies, chocolate dipped pretzels, etc. Annnnddddd it's time to run around again, burn off some of that energy. It's a good thing too because we left shortly after that and almost every tyke on the bus was asleep within five minutes. And we are free and I am happy. I believe it was a great day had by all.Rosie and Erica posing for the camera

My sweet lil June hiding between some rocks