On our third day in the parks, we went to EPCOT! We started our morning in Future World where we rode Spaceship Earth (pictured below) and Soarin'. We were also able to ride Test Track. Test Track is a fun ride where you get to design a vehicle and then test your vehicle's stats against the stats of the cars that the people in your ride vehicle made. It was quite a fun ride. We also had the time to ride the Living With the Land ride where you go on a boat ride through where Disney grows many of the foods that are used in their restaurants. It is quite an excellent experience and a way to get away from the heat and humidity outside. You can also see some Florida lizard friends. After lunch in the Japan Pavilion, we went and rode Mission: SPACE. It is a very fun ride where you are operating a rocket that is on a mission to Mars. You experience G forces and have quite a great time! My dad and I really had fun! After Mission: SPACE, we went to explore the different countries in EPCOT's World Showcase. We were able to explore the Mexico, China, Japan, France, and Italy Pavilions. There were several other pavilions to explore but we wanted to be sure that we could get to the Magic Kingdom shortly to attend our evening event! Stay tuned for my next post where we talk all about the specially themed After Hours event we went to in the Magic Kingdom!
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It has been a while since I have posted regularly. I am hoping to be able to continue my posts about my Disney vacation this last summer soon. In the mean time, I have posts from this last month and more current posts that will be coming up! Take a look at my new bulletin board and I am hoping to add more to my classroom page and update my pictures page to include summer 2019 soon.
I also have some BIG news about my summer 2020 that I will be sharing around March or so. I am very excited about this summer and am excited to share it soon! Because we did a dining package for Fantasmic! we were able to get preferred seating for the show. We did not get to the show very early but we were seated right in the front row in the center of the amphitheater. The show was fun and magical but it was definitely different from the original in California at Disneyland. The original will always be my favorite as I have seen it many times and it was the first Disney show that I ever saw. I do like that the show here has its own amphitheater but the show itself left me wanting for a bit more of the content from the Disneyland show. It was a wonderful and magical way to end our day but I don't know if I would go see it again if I go back to Disney World. In my next few posts, I'll be talking about our third day in Disney World where we went to EPCOT and attended a Villains themed After Hours event at Magic Kingdom.
In planning, I knew I wanted to see Fantasmic! at Hollywood Studios. I also knew that I wanted to try and get preferred seating for Fantasmic! The easiest way I saw was to book a dining package that would get us preferred seating. This dining package did not cost us anything extra. We only had to use our dining plan credits that we would have used anyway for this meal. We got extra benefits for nothing extra! It was a great deal! We chose the eat at the Hollywood Brown Derby for our meal. When we arrived, we were served warm bread and we each ordered a drink. I got a peach drink that is pictured on the left and my dad ordered a strawberry tequila drink pictured on the left. They were both delicious and wonderful. They were also gorgeous! My dad and I both ordered the restaurant's signature cobb salad for our entree. I chose to get mine with chicken while my dad just got the plain cobb salad. This was the BEST cobb salad I have ever had. I don't think I can ever have a cobb salad that is as amazing as this cobb salad was! It was also GIANT. I could not finish all of it! We also had dessert in our meal. I had their grapefruit cake (pictured on the left) and my dad had a passionfruit cake/mousse thing. They were both extremely delicious. Mine was sweet, sour, and deliciously balanced with grapefruit flavor, white chocolate, and cocoa nibs. My dad's was fruity and exciting. This entire meal was wonderful and I would definitely do it again if and when I go back to Disney World.
We spent the rest of the afternoon riding different rides and seeing shows. We saw the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular show, rode the Rock 'n Roller Coaster and rode the Hollywood Tower of Terror. We also saw the Frozen Sing Along show and were able to see the Muppets as well. It was so fun! Near the end of our evening we headed back for Fantasmic! See my next post for my thoughts on Fantasmic! in Disney World. For our second day in Disney World, we started our day with the Early Morning Magic event at Hollywood Studios. The park opened at around 7am so we were leaving our resort quite early! When we got there, we were let into the park along with special wristbands that showed that we were a part of the event. The park itself was quite empty which made for a relaxed experience. This event included breakfast as well as several hours of exclusive access to the recently opened Toy Story Land. We chose to go get breakfast first as it was on the opposite side of the park from Toy Story Land so that we could spend as much time as possible exploring Toy Story Land. The breakfast included a hot entree as well as a continental breakfast spread. I had avocado toast and my dad had a southwest breakfast bowl. It was all quite delicious. After breakfast, we headed over to Toy Story Land to go on the new rides and to explore. The lines were extremely short so we were able to ride the new Slinky Dog roller coaster several times in a row as well as Toy Story Midway Mania and the Little Green Alien ride that would spin you around! It was time and money well spent! This event was not crowded at all and was very fun. It was definitely worth the extra money to have the low crowds and to be able to explore this exciting new land without any pressure to move quickly. We were also able to take a picture of us with the Toy Story Land Sign from a Photopass photographer without having to wait! It was so nice to go through this land without any lines and with just a few people. By the time we had left, the lines had over an hour long wait and the area was packed! I would definitely recommend this event to anyone looking for some low stress extra time in Toy Story Land.
After leaving Toy Story Land, we planned to spend the rest of the day in Hollywood Studios. In my next post, I will be talking about the amazing lunch we had and the excellent end we had to this day. After our late night at Animal Kingdom the night before, we woke up ready for even more Disney magic. What better way to spark the magic than to go to the Magic Kingdom! We started our day taking the Disney boat directly from our resort to the Magic Kingdom. Whether it is Disney World or Disneyland, it is such a fun feeling to walk down Main Street USA. Check out that view! Our first stop of the day was to the Enchanted Tiki Room where we listened to those wonderful birds and crooning flowers. We also made sure to stop into the Emporium on Main Street to ask about first visit buttons and we were promptly given these fabulous buttons to commemorate our trip! We then took a wonderful ride on Pirates of the Caribbean while we were waiting for our Fastpass window for Big Thunder Mountain to open. We went on Big Thunder Mountain and then used another Fastpass for Splash Mountain. While on Splash Mountain, we were stopped on the ride for about 3 minutes. It was pretty fun to be stopped on a ride with the lights on! Definitely a different experience! We then made our way over to the Jungle Cruise to use our last pre planned Fastpass of the day. Then the fun could really start! I'm very glad that I read up a lot on how the Fastpass system in Disney World works because I was able to get more Fastpasses right after we tapped in for our Jungle Cruise Fastpass. We got Fastpasses this way for Haunted Mansion, Mickey's Philharmagic, Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (where I tried to max out the score and almost succeeded!), and Space Mountain! We were able to ride all of these rides with little to no wait in the course of an entire day WITHOUT getting to the park at the break of dawn! In addition to riding rides, we also spent time playing the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game that is exclusive to Disney World throughout the day. I'll be posting more about this in a later post as it is really fun! That night, for dinner, we had planned to go to Cinderella's Royal Table for dinner and had to pass the Tangled restrooms on our way there. It's only restrooms but they are gorgeous and wonderfully themed! We then made our way to the Castle for our dinner which was INSIDE the castle! Be on the lookout for when I post about how wonderful it was!
We finished our wonderful day in the best way possible, we went and met Mickey and Minnie! It was very nice and even without a Fastpass, we didn't have to wait long at all! We then hopped on the boat back to our resort and called it a night so that we could get ready for our EARLY morning the next day in Hollywood Studios! Our first night, right after we got to our resort, we went to Animal Kingdom for an After Hours event. Disney is now hosting events where limited numbers of guests get to enter the park and spend the evening in the park. They call these events After Hours and they hold them periodically at Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and at Animal Kingdom where we were! When we got to the park, we entered through a designated After Hours entrance and got special After Hours wristbands. After the park had officially closed to general guests, cast members were stationed at certain checkpoints in the park to check if you had a wristband or not. They would then direct you where you needed to go! The event started officially around 9pm and lasted until midnight but we were able to get into the park starting at 7pm. The first thing we did when we got to the park was go on a safari! On Kilimanjaro Safaris, we were able to see a BUNCH of different animals. Can you spot the lion? It was a BLAST! We then went to get some food and had some delicious ribs! After this, the event had yet to start and we had fastpasses for the Animal Kingdom nighttime show called Rivers of Light. It had been raining quite a bit before and during the show but it was very enjoyable and was great to watch. By the time the show was over, our event had started so we got started riding some rides! The first thing we rode was Expedition Everest which is a roller coaster. The special thing about this coaster is that it goes backwards! It was very exciting. We then went to Pandora and started exploring over there. We rode both of the rides with very minimal wait which is one of the selling points for these After Hours events and were able to ride Flight of Passage at least two or three times. It was AMAZING! I can see why people normally wait 3+ hours for it during the day. We were then able to get some drinks and ice cream. They were included in our admission to this event so we were able to walk up to any food cart and simply get whatever we wanted at no extra charge. We ate a ridiculous amount of ice cream! We then went to Dinoland USA and rode Dinosaur which is built on the same track as Indiana Jones in Disneyland but has a dinosaur theme. It was very fun and quite exciting! This day was our travel day so we were a bit exhausted but this event was so much fun! After having ridden a few more rides, we got more ice cream for the road and made our way out of the park where we saw projections happening on the Animal Kingdom Tree of Life. We then boarded the bus back to our resort and by the time we were back in our resort, we were reunited with our luggage!
All in all, it was a wonderful travel day with an amazing event! In my next post, I'll be talking about our first full day in Disney World! Stay tuned to see where we went, what we did, and what we ate! For the entire 11 days and 10 nights, we stayed at Disney's Wilderness Lodge Resort. We were located in a nature view room. Now, unfortunately, I forgot to get pictures of the inside of the room but the room was almost exactly the same as the pictures shown on Disney's website. Our resort was themed for the Pacific Northwest so it was kind of like something we'd see back home but it was a gorgeous resort! There was a spacious lobby with lots of seating and a giant fireplace modeled after rock layers and a river leading out from the lobby all the way to the pool. The resort had many areas to relax and unwind from the day. There were also several places to eat in the resort.
We were able to eat at almost every meal location in our resort. We had breakfast at Roaring Fork which is one of the quick service locations. We were able to do a lot at this location from getting breakfast to getting quick snacks like ice cream and fruit as well as fill up our refillable mugs that we got with our dining plan. We also ate at Geyser Point which was another quick service location out by the resort's pool. It is named for the resort's geyser which is modeled after Old Faithful at Yellowstone. The geyser erupts every hour during the day. It is quite cool to watch! There were two sit down restaurants. One is a character meal that we went to in the middle of our trip. The other seemed to be an interesting experience with all you can eat skillets and sassy wait staff! In regards to transportation, we had a couple of different options. My favorite option was using the boats to get to the Magic Kingdom. It left every 20-30 minutes and it was a short and beautiful boat ride. Another option was taking the Disney buses to wherever we needed to get to. There were designated bus stops for each park and our bus only stopped at one other resort before heading to the park. We also could have taken ride share services like Lyft and Uber. Disney also has its own comparable service through Lyft called Minnie Vans. We did not use this service but it would be something to try next time. Overall, it was a wonderful resort to stay at and I would definitely choose to stay at this resort on my next trip! Disney World has some lovely housekeepers. They are called Mousekeeping and many people tip them. To hold our tips for our trip, I decorated a bunch of different envelopes so that we could just load our envelopes and set them out each day. I had a ton of fun coming up with ideas for all of my envelopes while waiting for my 6am flight on the day we left!
The day before going to Disney World, my family and I went to a Seattle Mariner's game. It was a TON of fun! We were able to get wonderful seats near home plate and had such a great time! We even got to get our dose of garlic fries (we ate them so quickly I couldn't even get a picture)!
After sending our luggage off, we made our way to our gate a proceeded to wait until it was time for our flight to board. We had decided to splurge for this leg of our journey and fly first class. It was AMAZING! I had so much let room and I got to drink out of real glass cups! After this first part of our journey to Orlando, we had our very short layover! We climbed aboard the airport's shuttle and got to our gate just in time to board! No waiting necessary! In this first class experience, we got so much food! There was yogurt and granola, cinnamon bread, a frittata (of which there is no picture) and a smoothie! There was also mini water bottles all around and many many different snacks! We also each got a quilted blanket for the flight. It was so comfy! Our airline also provided entertainment screens to everyone instead of having a screen in the back of each seat. I was not the biggest fan of this model as the screens were not all charged and it was difficult to find a good place to set the screen in flight without it getting in your way. The flight though was very good! After disembarking the plane, we made our way to the tram to go to the ground transportation area where we walked to find Disney's Magical Express Kiosk. We scanned our magic bands with a lovely gentleman who made sure we had taken care of all of the things we needed to before directing us to the numbered lane to wait for our coach bus that would drop us off at our resort. After boarding the bus, we rode while the bus played videos on the screen about helpful Disney tips and fun animated shorts. The bus made one stop before our resort and then we had made it!! I'll be posting more about our resort in another post so please look forward to that!
We had a very fun event to go to this evening after we had gotten settled in our resort and by the time we had returned to our resort after the event, our luggage was waiting in our room for us! It was so convenient and caused no hassle! Disney World is an AMAZING experience! There is so much to do, see, and there is a lot to plan for.
I started planning for this trip over a year before we actually left for the trip. I researched all of the different places to stay, things to see, and things to do. The first thing I decided was where I wanted to stay. I had plenty of resorts to pick from and I eventually decided on Disney's Wilderness Lodge Resort. I am going to post about our resort and how nice it was in a later post. I also planned out how many days I wanted to go and if I wanted to get a Disney Dining Plan (I'll add a post about this later). After deciding what resort I wanted to stay at, I got in touch with a Disney travel agent. They are AMAZING! They do not charge for their services and they will help you get a great deal on your vacation. I went with Small World Vacations and they were able to save me almost $2500 on this vacation because even after I booked, they were able to attach the Disney Free Dining promotion that was happening for when I was there to my vacation. I saved a bunch of money on this! Disney Travel Agents are a great way to go! Next came figuring out what parks I wanted to go to and when. There were a lot of moving parts that came with this decision. It mainly revolved around dining reservations. At Disney World, for all sit-down restaurants, you can make reservations 180 days in advance. From what I read online, it is extremely important to get these reservations done at that 180 day mark. I got up around 4 in the morning to make sure I got the reservations that I wanted. I got what I wanted! At 60 days out, I was able to pre-select 3 fastpasses for each day I planned to be in the parks. Again, I got up around 4 in the morning to make sure I got all of the fastpasses that I wanted. Again, I got what I wanted! I also planned out extra events put on by Disney to attend like After Hours events, dessert parties, and VIP tours. Don't worry I'll post about ALL of this!!! There was so much planning that went into this trip! I'm sure y'all will see just how much planning went in through all of these posts! In the middle of July I went to Disney World! I spent almost two weeks there with my dad. It was such an amazing trip! Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting all about Disney World. I'll be talking about the planning I did as well as what I did and particularly what I ate throughout the 10 nights and 11 days I was there for. Hope you all look forward to it!
Aside from teaching kindergarten, I also coach the cheerleading team for the high school. One fun thing we do to prepare for our season is to go to cheer camp. It is a four day three night camp where the girls learn a lot of material to perform next year and learn about what it really means to be a cheerleader for their school. On the last day, there is a competition. We placed 3rd in several categories as well as won a leadership award. We also won several spirit sticks and The Banana which is a spirit award! Here are our spirit awards from night 3!
I live in such a beautiful place. I live less than an hour to the north or the south from a beach. A while ago, with a friend, I went and explored one of the beaches. We hiked down on to the beach and walked around the beach. We went over to the rocks and were able to explore the tide pools around. There were so many sea anemones and starfish. It was so nice! I hadn't been to tide pools since I was in elementary school.
Here are some pictures from that day! There are also some pictures from another beach where the hike down included a bunch of spruce trees! I can now confirm that a Whopper in Korea is the same as a Whopper in the US. Burger King has a lot of the same things as home :) One of the big differences though was the Coke. It was a little different. Not bad, it just had a little bit of a different taste. Overall, it was a little bit of America near my apartment. I also found a local street market! I saw a lot of different stalls with food and other things to buy. I also found a really local grocery store but I didn't go in. I might go explore there this weekend. I also want to build up some of my language skills to order from the different food stalls because a lot of the food smelled AMAZING!
Here's my drawing of the US (the picture cut off Texas and Florida) and a glimpse at some of my picture cards for my lesson! I'm supposed to start teaching my American culture lessons tomorrow and I'm kind of nervous. I think that I've really worked to scaffold and make these lessons accessible to many of the grade levels. I have even worked with my cooperating teacher to ensure that the lessons are appropriate for each grade that I will be teaching but it's the first lesson(s) so I don't really know how it will all go. I'm using some elements of GLAD and trying to make the material really accessible for all of the students but we'll see how it goes tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Things here at my school are going really well! I've co-taught one English lesson so far and I have taught a lesson about my hometown(s). Because I am in a public Korean elementary school, a lot of the instruction during the day is in Korean. This means that it is really hard for me to be a regular classroom teacher. Instead, I am what the teachers call a "subject teacher" my job is essentially to provide English instruction as a native speaker of English as well as to share lessons about my home culture. I am planning on teaching a 10 week (one lesson per week) unit on America and American culture. The scary thing is I will be teaching these lessons to all of the grades in the school. First grade through sixth grade. That is kind of scary but I'm really excited to take on this role of being a bit of an EFL (English as a foreign language) specialist which is extremely similar to my endorsement that would allow for me to teach ELLs (English langauge learners) back home. I will essentially be teaching the same lesson to every class but it will be tailored to meet the language and developmental abilities of each grade. I'm supposed to start with some fourth and fifth grade classes on Thursday so I hope it goes well!
Last night, we as a school went out to dinner! It was really great! We ate a lot of traditional Korean foods and we also went out for coffee afterwards. I posted pictures of this in the pictures page here. (Click it, it will take you to the picture page :) ). I had a lovely night and tried several new foods like stingray/skate. It had a good taste but the texture was very different from how it looked. I had a lovely time after school today with several of the teachers. Every Tuesday, the teachers get together to play badminton and have a good time. I really enjoyed badminton all throughout school but I never really had the opportunity to play it recreationally so it was really nice to be able to go play a fun sport with several of the teachers from the school (even the vice principal!). It was a great time! I really enjoyed how we could all play a sport together and not really need to use our language. We were all simply having fun! I am now glad that I was forced to take some of those PE classes in school :) knowing some of the rules to badminton came in handy! I know this post was a lot of different things smashed together but a lot has happened in just a few days! Please go look at the pictures page if you want to see some of the pictures that I have taken while I've been here! It's a bit more interesting than just reading all of this :). This was my dinner tonight. I decided to be brave and go out to this place called hansot doshirak or hansot lunch box. I had found it on my map and thought that it would be interesting to try. I had also looked at their menu online and it looked like they had food that I wouldn't mind eating. I went to the shop and it was really small. Like REALLY small and all of the menu was in Korean. Luckily there were some signs with pictures so I was able to find a picture that looked good and read its Korean name. I decided to go with something that said "chicken" in the name. I figured that might be good! I went into the shop and successfully ordered my food! In Korean! By no means was my Korean great but I got food and the lady that took my order understood me (I'm assuming since I got food) so I'm happy. The food was a bit spicy but it was good!
If you want to read what all of the food was, click on the picture with the food and I will have a description there. :) I went on a bit of a short adventure today! I had a mission to go buy some indoor shoes because in the school we are supposed to change our shoes so that we keep the inside of the school clean. I went to the Japanese chain store Daiso and after a bit of trouble finding the actual store and needing to use Google Translate a couple of times, I found it! I accomplished my mission in buying indoor shoes and I found a cute pair of socks! To give myself a bit of a reward, I went to a bubble tea shop called Gong Cha. I had heard really good things online about Gong Cha and they were not wrong!
Gong Cha is available in Asia and only a few parts of the United States. I think it originated in Taiwan and it is supposed to be one of the best chain stores for bubble tea. The internet was not wrong! It was a bit scary going into the shop where there was no one else except the two people working behind the counter. Luckily the menu had a bit of English and I could read a bit of the Korean on the menu. I had also looked up kind of how Gong Cha works when ordering. I picked my size, tea/drink base, pearls, sugar level, and ice level. The workers behind the counter were very helpful and very understanding when it came to my inability to speak Korean very well. I can kind of say, "excuse me," "sorry," "yes," and "no" but that did not help me much in ordering a drink! I had seen on the internet that the iced black tea drink with 30% sugar and the tapioca pearls was good so I decided that I would get that! It was delicious! I really enjoyed it and it was a wonderful treat! I also felt really accomplished in having ordered something in a Korean shop all by myself! I hope to go back and maybe try a different kind of tea or drink base. I think it is strawberry season here as I keep seeing lots of pictures of strawberry themed drinks and pastries so I might try something strawberry soon! Overall, this was a successful adventure and I found several other places that I want to go to and shop and a few places where I want to go get food! We'll see how that goes! Today I taught my first "lesson." It wasn't much of a lesson. It was more of me just talking about my hometown and where I went to school. Luckily I had a book and some playing cards with pictures of my home state on them and I had the students working to look through these pictures and sort them from what I had shown them and what other pictures they saw. It ended up being a pretty short lesson but I think I have already learned a lot about teaching English in an EFL setting versus an ESL setting.
In my lesson, I also shared about some of the things that I like like K-pop (BigBang) and Hamilton (which none of the students really knew anything about which was not surprising as I figured it was a bit of a shot in the dark). I also shared that I really liked to read. I then asked the students to share a bit about what they like so that I could get to know a little about them. Some students were more eager to share than others but whenever I would go up to a student and ask them, "What do you like?" they all had an answer that was pretty good! Although the management strategies differ a bit from 2nd grade, I think that working with these 6th graders is going to be a great experience in teaching and learning for both me and the students. Hi everyone! I know it's been a while since I've posted. After about 24 hours of travelling I made it to Seoul, South Korea and my apartment at about 8pm Korean time on Monday the 27th and at about 4am Oregon time. It was a really long trip but I am really happy to be here! I spent yesterday (the 28th) at my school meeting staff and faculty members and getting to know the building. The school is really close to my apartment!
My apartment is a very nice size and it is quite close to at least one convenience store, the subway, and a lot of different shops and cafes! I'm hoping to post some pictures soon of both my apartment and some of the surrounding area! Today (March 1st) was a holiday and yesterday the 28th was the students' last day of break. Tomorrow I begin with the students in the classroom. I'm really excited to start teaching and working with and learning from everyone in the school! I am so excited to go to Korea and begin my student teaching! I’m really hoping to learn a lot about the Korean language and to have a unique experience within a school. Because I will be teaching in an elementary school, I am excited to gain more experience and pick up some new skills in working with students who are English language learners! I am also excited to learn about Korean culture and how it is both different from and similar to my own culture. In preparation for my experience, I have done a bit of specific research in relation to my host school such as what the neighborhood is like and what is taught in the school. I have been in touch with my cooperating teacher to learn a bit about the Korean National Curriculum that is taught in schools. Although I have only been learning about my host school for a short time, I have been learning about Korea and Korean culture for a while. I have been interested in Korean pop music and through that I have discovered different people who have blogged about life and culture in Korea. I also have several friends who grew up in Korea and have shared parts of their culture with me. I have also previously visited Korea as a tourist and I am very excited to visit again as a student teacher. There are a lot of things that I am excited about for this experience. I’m excited to meet new people who are in the same profession as I am but may have a different perspective that I can learn from. I am also excited to learn more about the Korean language and pick up as much as I can. I’m also excited for all of the delicious Korean food that I will get to eat! Although I am excited for a lot of things, I’m a bit nervous about getting to know the neighborhood and community that I will be living and working in. I want to be able to get to know this community and do my best to be a part of it. I’m not always the most outgoing person which can make this hard but I hope to do my best to make this experience great. Some ways that I have strategized to do this are to get to know my mentor teacher as well as my supervisor and principal because they are already members of this community and will have a lot of knowledge to share with me about where I will be living and working. I’m also hoping to reach out to people who I already know and have met in Korea. This would help for me to get out and do more things and get to know the country even better. I’m already really excited for this trip and I am looking forward to the experiences I will have in this program. This will be a new adventure but I am hoping it will be amazing! |
AllisonThese are the chronicles of my time before, during, and after student teaching in South Korea! Archives
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