Lions and Tigers and Bears-- Oh My!

So last Wednesday was another field trip for LCI Kindergarteners...

On the outskirts of Gwang-Ju there is a place that reminded me of a haunted/abandoned fun-park from somewhere between the late 50’s to mid 70’s. This place is called Family Land. It is full of bright colors and a large area of land that houses relics of what must have been “high-tech” at least for Korea I assume. It made me a little sad. More sad later-first…Family Land is the host of our nearest Zoo. That was the true part of our destination Wednesday morning, of course, we (teachers) loved the fact that we were going to a zoo—animals! Hells ya!

So we travel for 45 min on a rather warm bus. The kids are already hot, hungry, thirsty and whining; we arrive and have to walk a bit from the entrance to the park itself; the kids are more hot, it is now past the usual snack time so they are very hungry, it is three bathroom breaks past their normal schedule so they have to pee and they are hot I repeat. Anyway they get a bathroom and water and we are given permission to head off for an hour and look at the animals.

Off the classes head; splitting up and moving around to see different things and not be in each other’s way. The kids liked most of it. They got to see animals that they love to see, but it was (well not really really hot) for them t was hot and the animals were not in a playful and moving mood. I do not blame the animals for just lying there. It seemed they had no fight left in them.—Sidebar: I have become very used to seeing the “natural” habitat style that most of the zoos in the US have begun to design themselves around. An idea that animals don’t do well enclosed in a 15x15 ft. box when that is not what they were bread for. Unfortunately, that is still the style of family Lands Zoo here. The hippo had tank barley big enough for it to fit into; all the big cats had 15x15 cells; the chimps’ cages were even smaller, but a little taller. They had dogs: huskies and labs and that was really weird to me.

Lastly, what broke my heart the most: the elephants. The elephants allowed for two interaction options at the zoo. One was that you could ride the elephants; what was sad was that they were chained to the ground with no water or food option near standing in piles of their own feces waiting for people to ride them. The other was a little less sad, but still awful for the health of the elephants (but a fun thing for the kids) was that you could purchase carrots to feed them. The problem is that with so many little kids the animals freaked out a little with the loud noises and sudden movements, but the kids were not to be settled down.

Overall it was very interesting to be able to see and compare the zoo and the kids enjoyed seeing the animals; the tiger was even feeding on chicken when we visited it. We got to picnic and ride the “train” back to the buses when we were all done and like I said the kids had fun which is what is important. We don’t know what Junes field trip will be, but rumor has a water park as our July destination.

One more story that came from that day: for teachers day I received some 40,000 W sunblock whitening lotion. I thought it was just sunblock, but no it literally was “whitening” lotion. It had make-u-ish stuff as well as SPF to bleach your skin. I am pretty pale as it is and am a little surprised that a parent thought I needed to be paler-of course they did say that I was not as pale as I was when I arrived…This culture sometimes…Oh and one last completely unrelated topic: a student made me/showed me how to make and origami camera today-it is super sweet!