Everland: Even more Koreans packed into an even smaller space

Well, today was yet another interesting day. The whole school, teachers and students, went on a field trip to Korea's version of Disneyland. So, around 8:30 am I boarded one of the two couch buses to the usual squeals and shrill cries. I'm not sure how the initial thrill of me has yet to wear off, but whenever I enter a room I'm still greeted by the usual 20 to 30 voices all yelling, "Eric!!!" or "Hi, Eric!!". Which I guess can be seen as a very small victory for getting these kids to speak English...they can at least all say "Hi" or "Hello". I'm setting my expectations low, deal with it. Anywhooo, an hour or so later we arrived at the park, and my darkest fears were confirmed: it was some kind of student day at the park and there were literally hundreds of couch buses filled with screaming Korean children just aching to practice their English (see above). Well, whatever, the coasters and sweet rides will surely help ease the pain to my eardrums. Wrong. It was decided and told to me at the gates that I would be following around Jeong Dongchun, the gym teacher, rather than some of the kids, who I actually get along with quite well and enjoy. Okay, fine, it makes sense to some degree as he has the most English skill of anyone here, since my co-teacher is somewhere trying not to die from some ailment or something. That was part of the reason why I wanted to relax and enjoy myself so much at Everland, as my co-teacher abruptly left school on thursday because she couldn't hear out of her right ear and she has no plans to come back all of next week. This wouldn't normally be a problem as she offers no assistance or help in any of the classes, but she also told me that I will need to teach all the extra classes where she usually taught grammar. Hmmm, I like the sound of that. I seriously have no fucking clue what is going to happen come Monday, but rest assured, I won't be in the know until a minute before. That's the Korean way, that and never being on time for anything. Back to Everland, so maybe following around the gym teacher won't be that bad, right? Hahahah, not. We spend about 10 minutes wandering through the park before I finally ask what we are doing, if we are gonna hit the roller coasters. No, I'm told, the lines are too long...fuck my anus. So where do we go? To the lame little passenger choo-choo (not even manly enough to warrent the name "train") that travels around the park, you know the one. Every park has one, you know, for the infants and the really freaking elderly. After that thrilling ride we wandered around one of the park's gardens, admiring the flowers. Do they realize how morally wrong a cock tease of this magnitude is? Why bring me all this way just so I can look at the coasters? If that's the case, it would have been better to leave me home. This brings me back yet again to the kid gloves again. Now, I've talked with a bunch of English teachers now, and its all the same. It must be some cultural mindset that if you don't know how to speak Korean, they you must be retarded and clearly can't even go number two with someone to watch you. Well, except for English...we're all experts on that, supposedly, but beyond that we are brain dead. Eventually, the gym teacher caught on t0 my numerous love lorn glances toward the nearest coaster and asked if I wanted to ride them. I said "Yes", to which he responded "But there are long lines?", to which I thought "I don't give a fuck" but to which I said "Yes, I know". It was then decided that I would be allowed to ride the coaster and they found some of the 8th grade boys and I tagged along with them. The wait was supposed to be 3 hours (yeah, pretty fucking ridiculous even for amusement parks), but the kids cut and dodged and pushed old ladies out of the way to cut our waiting time down to 2 hours..ehhh. This brings me to the day's and my Korean trip's "Wow, I'm fucking lucky" moment. The coaster was a brand new wooden one, almost identical to Viper at Six Flags. Well, going down the first massive drop, I decided to hold my hands up and somehow my hand hit the side of my head absolutely perfectly and my glasses flew off my head. So here I am, in the midst of a enjoyable roller coaster ride, and I'm already now planning ahead to how the hell I'm going to get new glasses (I had forgetten that I have another pair at the apart.), and how I'm going to try to explain to my mom how my glasses were lost (I was leaning towards broken in a bar fight). Anyways, midway through the ride I happen to look in the car behind me and the little middle school girl behind me is holding my glasses out to me. Wow. Somehow, the glasses had flown back towards her and either hit her and she held on to them or they perfectly fell into her car. Whatever the explanation, it doesn't matter. By some stroke of luck, I managed to keep my glasses, meaning of course that I've used up my luck for years to come now. Everland itself wasn't terribly exhilarating, as there are only 3 coasters and some county fair style pukers that would interest me. It might be worth a trip back, only if I were accompanied by Ms. Sundaram, just so I could see the pain and sadness on her face when she gazes upon the European Village area. Their "representation" of German villages and the like, made me laugh and I've never actually been to Germany to know just how awful this area was. They even had signs written in Germany for show. Germany and the german language has been reduced to decorations. Beautiful. Also, the park finally showcased some really humorous awful English. My favorites were from the instructional video during the roller coaster line: "Do not over-play on the attractions" and "Do not be surprised by explosions". These weren't really bad English, but the idea of them made me laugh. How does one over-play? Who decides where that line is drawn? What explosions should I be expecting? How can you not be surprised by explosions? The coup'd'gras (I know I didn't spell that right) was the showy parade. The parade itself was the usual overblown spectacle, but something caught my eye. Of the dancers not wearing animal heads, that is, I could see their face, at least 60% were whiteys. I felt bad for the bastards, reduced to animals at a zoo, constantly blindsided with flashbulbs and yelled at. I was so tempted to just run into the parade, break the retaining rope and set them all free. I really don't how they got so many foreigners. Did they just use foreigners convicted of minor crimes as indentured servants of a sort, owned by Everland until they work off their crimes? I'm not sure, but I'm gonna do my research. I expect many hagwans (private English academies) are missing their English speaking monkeys. After the parade is was back to the bus, as we only had around 5 hours to spend at the park before heading home. The bus ride home was surprisingly pleasant, as I found out that our couch bus was packing a built in kareoke machine. Ohh, hells yeah. I'm still coming down from my cold and my voice is not completely back, but when you have a mike shoved into your face and "Let It Be" by the Beatles is queued up, you don't have any choice but to let it be. Song finished, queue the screams and squeals. Now I really feel like a member of a freaking boy band. I also was given Yesterday and Happy Together to sing. Sadly, only one other student and one of the teachers sang besides me. These folks are just so collectively terrified of fucking up, its ridiculous. Not surprisingly, the one student who sang four different Korean tunes is also my best student and has the best English. What a strange coincidence....