Goodbye Omni

Leaving our students at Omni was really difficult since we had taught most of them for a year and a half. We had developed relationships with these kids and knowing that we would probably never see them again after coming home was so sad. Our last couple of days at Omni were filled with pizza parties, games, group pictures, and some adorable presents from the kids.

Pizza party with the sixth graders!

Sixth graders Jamie and Clara...with Brenda peeking around them in the back.

Frank enjoying some pizza with his sixth graders.

Us with fifth graders Harry, Ethan, and Jessica...our most advanced class.

Frank with fourth graders Dennis, Harry, Alex, Jessica, Joanna, Jenny, and Nick

Melissa with her favorite class of third graders- Louis, Eric, Jessica, Dean Jr., Ally, Crystal, and

Rachel. This class loved to write songs to go along with the stories in the book.

Ally and her mother came to Omni at the end of the day to bring us some very special presents. They gave us a photo album filled with pictures of their family, some Korean tea, matching "couple" cell phone charms, and a very nice letter. We started teaching Ally at ELC when she was in first grade and have watched her grow so much over the year and a half we've known her. Now, she's in third grade and is such an excellent English speaker! We will miss Ally so much!

First graders Jamie and Enya- so cute!

First grader Wendy with her potato stick. This little girl has the biggest personality of anyone else her size. She speaks with so much enthusiasm and sounds like a native English speaker!

First graders Sally and Amy

Fourth grade class Eric, Sally, Jenny, Terry, and Kevin

Funny fifth grade boys Tony, John, David, and Harry

Fifth graders Henry, David, Alex, Tony, Sarah, Jina, and John

Frank with third graders Jessica and Crystal

Melissa with Linda, Cindy, and Ally...which one can I bring home with me?

Frank with fourth graders Emily, Sally, Erica, Alvin, Harry, and Alex

Fifth grade class- Tony, Brian, Sally, Vanessa, Lucy, and Lily

Omni's receptionist Sophia

Korean teacher Lina

Dawn, Frank, Rabey, Chris, Jessie, Josephine, Ben, and Melissa

Omni had a goodbye dinner for us and a welcome dinner for our replacement teachers Dawn and Ben. We enjoyed a traditional Korean meal of grilled pork and beef.

Leaving Omni was bitter-sweet for us. We were there since the opening of the school when around 20 students were enrolled. Now Omni has grown to over 100 students! Although it was a wonderful experience, a lot of extra time and effort went into helping establish the school. Our students were what made the hard work worth it. They were so fun to teach and really made our experience in Korea memorable. We were fascinated by their drive to master English at such a young age. The amount of time our Korean students study is unbelievable. Our elementary students not only go to school six days a week, they attend academies after school until 10pm! The academies are in subjects such as English, Korean, math, science, piano, etc. On holidays, they spend their time studying. We admire their work-ethic, but wish they had a little more time to play and be kids. The great thing about teaching our students is that even though they lead somewhat adult-like lives, we learned they still love to joke, play games, tell stories, sing songs, and act silly. They also did a great job of making us feel loved. They will always have a special place in our hearts and we hope to see them again some day!

Field trip to Gyeongju World

Yesterday we went on a field trip to Gyeongju World amusement park with 28 of our students from Omni. We all had a blast! We left Omni at 11am, but with traffic on our way to Gyeongju, we didn't arrive until 12:30. That's a long time on a bus filled with elementary students!
The Bus Ride:

Fifth graders Tony, Alvin, Harry, and Ethan on the Omni bus on the way there.

The Omni bus with newly added seat covers and curtains...stylin!

Keven- fourth grader

Lily and Andrea being adorable.

An hour and a half bus ride...entertainment? Play with teacher's camera!

Other sources of entertainment were their PSPs and cell phones.

Are we there YET?
Gyeongju World: Things are done a lot different here in Korea. For example, after we arrived at the amusement park, the kids were told to go and play...so all kids of different ages ran off to explore on their own with no adult chaperone. Some kids did stay with teachers, but most just met up with us at 5pm to leave. Korea is extremely safe, so that allows more freedom for the kids.

We're there! Notice the boys in the front all holding hands. Can you imagine fifth grade boys in the US doing that? It's weird, even straight men hold hands here.

6th grade girls holding hands ♥

Alex, first grader. This little boy is hilarious! On the bus ride to the amusement park, he used his cell phone to call everyone in his family, including aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. to tell them where he was going and to ask how they were doing. He was acting so grown-up. Oh, and yes, even first graders have the latest cell phones here! :)

Gyeongju World

Josephine, Frank, and John waiting in line to go on the Viking ride.

Lily and Andrea on the Viking ride. It's too bad that Lily was scared out of her mind after the ride started and refused to go on any other rides the rest of the day.

Terry- fifth grader

Terry in the last row on the Viking.

Bumper cars which this group of boys waited an hour in line for.

Tony

Alex and Frank sharin some tunes.

2 of our youngest students Amy and Alex- first graders

Taking an ice cream break

Sarah and her little brother Harry

Joanna and Rachel

Melissa, Jessica, Sophia (Omni's receptionist), Alex, and Amy

Mega Drop!

Melissa after Mega Drop dropped 230 feet!

Tornado, the scariest ride ever!
Dinner: After arriving back in Ulsan, we went to a hamburger restaurant called "Chi Chi's."

When we drove up to the restaurant, the servers had already set out all the kids plates filled with food, so they could immediately dig in and refuel!

Sarah enjoying her cheese burger, fries, bananas, and cookies.

Mmmmm!

We ended our field trip at 7:30pm exhausted, but happy we got to have such a fun day with our kids before leaving Korea. We've been so impressed with the kids' behavior in Korea. We didn't have any crying, fighting, or tattling during the entire trip and RARELY have any of that kind of behavior in the classroom, either, which makes them so fun to teach! We'll really miss all of them.