Pancake Classes and Muuido

This past week, I had some extra fun classes with the grade 3 students. Their textbook chapter "Hello Our Foreign Neighbors," provided the perfect opportunity to bring in some Canadian culture. So the students learned the recipe and vocabulary words required for making pancakes with maple syrup.

Learning the recipe for pancakes

We didn't stop there. Once they learned the recipe, the students had the chance to actually make and eat pancakes with maple syrup. They were pretty excited about it. 

cooking up some pancakes

Over two weeks, I did this language and cooking lesson with nine separate classes, so I'm over pancakes for a while, but it was really worth it to put in the planning and effort to create a lesson that the students will probably remember even after they've written their final exams. 

Teamwork 

My co-teacher and appreciating the beauty of maple syrup

By the time the weekend rolled around, Corey and I were both ready for a break. We decided to have a beach day. After a ten minute subway ride, hour bus ride, fifteen minute walk across a scary narrow bridge, and two minute ferry ride (where people actually tried to lure the seagulls to the boat by feeding them shrimp-flavored snacks), we found ourselves on the shores of Muuido. It's a small island just off of the Incheon International Airport Island.

This was the sign on the scary narrow bridge. 

Feeding seagulls

Corey and the seagulls

Emily and the seagulls

After all of our travel, Corey and I thought we'd skip the shuttle to the beach and just walk around until we ended up there. We didn't take the most direct route, but we did see some interesting things along the way. First, we saw a hobbit hut and some gardens.

Hobbit Hut

Then we saw a sign that indicated 500 metres to some kind of family-fun looking beach. We took that path and saw several well-kept gardens, a lodge filled with drums and other instruments being prepared for the evening's events, and then we finally came to the "beach", except it was no longer beachy. 

sign indicating beach fun ahead

The place looked more like a seashell graveyard. It was miles of dried up mud and a completely deserted boardwalk. We looked at the map and saw a very different version of the place where we stood. Although the dock and pathways were the same, the areas of the map that marked fishing and swimming no longer existed. I wish we took a picture of the fishing dock. It was entirely surrounded by mud with not water in sight, but look at it on the map and even in the photo on the sign above and you'll see a very different picture.

Seashell graveyard

Idealist's map

Contemplating the vast emptiness from a stoop

Anyway, after that we continued our walk and this time got to a Hanagae beach. It was busy, but not crowded. There were some people ziplining and riding horses on the sand. Other people were sitting in their rented beach huts.

Advertising for the famous Korean drama filmed on Hanagae Beach

A zipliner

Beach huts

Corey wanted to get out to the water though. First, there's about a mile of moist, muddy, sandbars to cross and then there's a murky bit of ocean that licks the edge of these mud flats and withdraws again at the bitter taste. 

Embracing the mud

collecting clams? Nope, just carrying our shoes

looking at snails and crabs

It was a fascinating place to visit. I couldn't believe such a landscape existed. I thought it looked a bit like an alien planet and this picture that Corey took really captures it.

Look at this picture in full size to get a sense of what the place felt like

After all of our mud-walking, we were hungry and needed some shade, so went for an early dinner at the seafood restaurant on the beach. We ordered our food and before it arrived, the group of three middle-aged beach-goers beside us at the long restaurant table struck up a conversation with us in Korean, gestures and very limited English.

Seafood Restaurant on the beach

We exchanged introductions and figured out that they were a couple and the third-wheel was the husband's brother who had come from Seoul for the day. They already had a collection of empty soju bottles on the table, but that didn't stop them from inviting Corey and I to drink with them. Corey had some beer with them, but they were disappointed that I stuck to my water. Their disappointment with me grew when my bibimbap was brought to me and I ate it wrong--without adding hot sauce or mixing in the proper amount of rice from my rice bowl. The wife quickly corrected my faux-pas, by stirring in the proper amount of hot sauce and rice for me. She did it in a very good-natured and maternal way so I couldn't bring myself to get upset about it. Instead I ate every bit of that bibimbap and tried to smile through it between large sips of water. At the same time, we kept up a bit of confusing conversation, but I just appreciated that they took the time to try and socialize with us even though it was challenging for them to find the words they wanted in English and nearly impossible for Corey and I to reply in Korean. 

Finally, we were ready to leave the island. We waited for the ferry to go back to the mainland, unsurprised this time to see people buying snacks from a vendor specifically to feed the seagulls. Yes, it was a strange day all around, but also really nice and relaxing. There are still so many things about life in Korea that perplex me, but sometimes you just have to go with it.