More Pics

ECC Work Shop

Above is Clare and her cast for "The Wizard of Oz" Clare is the bad witch!

Below is my class and I doing a dance during our performance to "Hit the Road Jack"



We had been working for months on this Work Shop and so now you can to see some of the finished product.

The purpose of the Work Shop is to show the kids parents their excellent English skills by performing an English play and English songs. It was alot of work for everyone and nerves were running hing on the day. I can't remember feeling as nervous as I did for a long time.

I am the stunning actress in the bird costume. The middle kid is Mother Swallow and Jeff on the left and myself are the Baby Swallows. I also had a stint dressed as Fred Flinstone for my part as the pumpkin monster.
These are Clare's kids doing their ballet dance to the music from Swan Lake.

There was no dress rehearsal no serious stage rehearsal. Unless you call walking the kids on stage for 5 minutes serious. So these poor 5 -7 year olds were unaware of how it would feel under the lights in their costumes! Besides all that all of them did really well. Of course there were funny moments. The kid who fell over or in my case who wandered around the stage hopelessly trying to find his mark. Parents laughed while I did a silly dance in the wings trying to get him to the right place.

Moonmak Ranch Weekend

This weekend the Soeul Sisters organised a trip to Moonmak. Moonmak is about an hour and a half East of Central Seoul. It is an agricultural area which is packed with rice paddies. It is also a nice recreational area for hikers and horse enthusiasts.

The Sisters arranged for us to visit a ranch in Moonmak where we rode horses for a little while and we also frolicked a little in the Autumn leaves. The valley was wallpapered in yellow, red and brown. The rice paddies had been harvested and bales were ready to be collected and stacked up for the cold days ahead.

The horses were lovely. Our guide and ranch manager Anna had a good array of breeds. Palomino and Shetland were the only ones I can remember. Some of the horses she had bought over from America when she moved. Clare, Marie and I explored a bit as we were told that there were Moon Bears being farmed in the area. It is a bit of a sad story as the Bears are caged and milked for their bile which is used for traditional medicines. We were morbidly fascinated to see them. I have found that the IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) has a spot about the bears mistreatment. We didn't manage to find the cages but perhaps it was a good thing as it might have been upsetting.

Although we didn't find the bears we did manage to find an artificial fishing hole surrounded with old car seats under canopies. The hole was packed with fish! I guess if you have a limited time this is an ideal place to go an make sure you will catch something.

After our session on the horses we ate a late lunch outside in a spot over looking the ranch and farm land. We were joined by a couple of giant wasps interested by our in red wine.

A little saddle sore, stuffed with pasta and tired from the fresh air we retired to our pensions. The Sisters rented out two brand new pensions (cabins) huddled on a crest overlooking the river.

Halloween!

It was a crazy busy day for us at ECC. Here are some of Clare's kindy kids looking happy dressed up in their costumes. Candy, face painting, haunted houses and then a party in the park with their Mums and Dads made it a fast paced day.

It all ended with a dance party and even the sun came out so that it was too hot! Good fun. Happy Halloween!

Clare's kindy kids on Halloween day.