Today was Carly’s first day back at work. But it was the retreat portion and families could go. The destination was Nami Island, a park/resort/art community/cultural micro nation on an island in the middle of the Han about an hour upriver from Seoul.
We left a little before 8. There was some rain as we walked across the park; luckily, this was the only rain of the day. We took the bus to APIS. Soon, we were on the chartered busses and August fell right to sleep and slept the whole way to Nami.
We took a short ferry to the island, then Carly had an hour of icebreaker games in a field. August and I played nearby: with water in a sink area, watching a lawnmower (I was surprised when he said ‘lanmow’ right away), and mainly with the parts to his pink straw bottle.
When they were done, we all walked to the center of the island and had lunch (bulgogi hot pot). August ate a lot of rice, beef, and veggies.
We then had three hours of free time. We walked around the island with Megan, the new 8th grade Eng/SS teacher. We stopped and watched a backhoe working with rocks along a river. Soon after that, August fell asleep in the carrier. We got back around to where we had departed the ferry and found a covered platform. August stayed sleeping in the carrier for another 20 or 30 minutes.
We headed back to meet up with the group at 3. Along the way there was a series of art prints of animals by a Uruguayan artist. August really liked these, particularly the sheep and the lion, to which he would walk up and say ‘roar’.
We got back only to find they cancelled the afternoon activity. So it was back through the island to the ferry. August wasn’t really happy about being forced to move so often, but he got to play with some plants and smell flowers before we had to walk back.
Back on the bus, August was full of energy on the ride home. Luckily, he had a lot of fun. As we neared APIS he was waving to other people on the bus and saying ‘bye bye’.
We went into the school and Carly’s classroom to change him, then took the bus home. He was playing well at home, but started to crash when Carly went in to try to sleep and I was going to give him a bath. So I gave him a quick bath in the sink and he headed off to bed sometime before 8.
New words: cranberry (cra bay bee), lawnmower (lanmow), bop (rice), tree (both ‘tree’ and ‘namu’), stick, tunnel (he said it all 4 times we went through a tunnel in the busses, apple (as opposed to ‘sagwa’)
Lunch:
Meeting Megan and tasting her ice cream:
Entertainment:
The Han:
Asleep:
Art:
Baba:
Sitting in a chair in Carly’s classroom:
