Oy Veh, Children's Day

Do I get groan points for my title? One week ago today was my second big Children's Day celebration at English Village, yet another event which had me wondering how on earth it had been a whole year since the last one. It was a day full of line-dancing (at least for me) performing, and smiling kids.


Here are a couple of my edutainer buddies hanging out before the big show that we did.


And here's a nice photo (most of these are courtesy of my friend Emma) from our performance of Love Shack (with the lyrics rewritten to be about English Village). The show was essentially the same as last year but with a few small changes (and of course many of the performers were different).


This is me singing our Children's Day version of Mama Mia with Eva and Rachel. Do you like my pink wig?


And this is the whole group doing Shout, with Eva and me (did you see that people? Me, not I. That, my friends, is correct grammar.) on backup vocals.


And here's a lovely post-show pic of Rachel and me.


Children's Day happened to fall on my friend and co-worker Robyn's birthday, so afterwards we all went out to celebrate with her. As you can see, I gave the festivities the thumbs-up.

Because this year Children's Day fell on a Monday, a day when the park is usually closed, I had to work a six-day week, with only one day off. I will get an extra day off in July to make up for it, which will give me a three-day weekend and be awesome. However, I felt as though I needed to make the most of my one day off,


So I went with Robyn and another lovely edutainer, Kelly, to the beach. It was not the nicest beach ever but we had a good time. Unfortunately, it was too windy for us to be able to lie out on the sand comfortably for very long. We had a nice meal and then decided to explore a cement walkway that went out among the rocks.


Part of the walkway was broken and we had to walk over this instead. It was scary.


Here is Kelly, who conquered a rock,


And here I am among the rocks, wearing the ugliest sunglasses EVER (I love them in all their ridiculous glory).

We had a lot nice beach hiking and then gorged ourselves on delicious ice cream before heading home.

This week was also pretty crazy. On top of my usual schedule of game shows and line dancing, I had rehearsals for George Saves Storyland. In addition to that, our whole department had to learn a song and dance number for the show and film it, all in about two days! It was a good exercise in learning choreography quickly and really being on the ball. It was also fun, but tiring. As if I weren't busy enough, I had to go in as an understudy in School Days for the first time yesterday. Things went well, considering that I had had three rehearsals total for the role. I did three shows and was finally able to start feeling comfortable during the last show. I will be back at it on Wednesday and Thursday of this week and I'm sure it will be fun. It's definitely a nice break from the game shows and activities.

And that, folks, is all for now.

Back and on the Attack

As predicted, it's been a busy couple of weeks since returning to dynamic Korea. I've learned my new understudy role and I'll be going in next Sunday. I've also started rehearsals for next season's show, George Saves Storyland, (which will be my last) as well as learning the music and choreography for our Children's Day song and dance extravaganza, which we'll be performing tomorrow. I can't believe it's already that time again! I'm now preparing for a pretty quiet evening, since tomorrow is bound to be exhausting. When we're not doing the show, I'll be teaching dances to energetic kids pretty much all day long. Wish me luck (or rather, leg-breakage). In the meantime, below are a few highlights from the last couple of weeks.

Last week was Military Week again. This time around we weren't allowed to drink with the soldiers, but luckily there were no rules against us breaking it down with them. Dance, navy boys, dance.


Dear Mom, just thought you'd be glad to see that I made good use of those wax lips you gave me. -Alena. This was taken at my friend Nic's going away party which doubled as a birthday party for my friends Mary and Brian.


In case you were wondering whether Korea was still totally weird, it is.


Here I am with Drina, aka Babykins, who seems to double in size and personality every time I see her. We're in the living room at her Mom and Dad's new pad in Seoul.


Here's one of the views from the top observation deck at N Seoul Tower. I had the opportunity to go there and meet up with my friend Rachel and her friend Rachel (yes, really) before second Rachel headed back to the U.S. of A. from her visit here.



And here's a fetching photo of all but one of the Edutainer ladies after we had a delicious meal at one of the restaurants in Heyri Art Valley.

The times, they are pretty good. 10-4