Field trip in the Mountains

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***My son's 3rd grade class went on a field trip close to Seoul, somewhere in the mountains to learn about using plants to naturally dye cloth. Nobody seemed to know the exact name of the location of where we were at and it was such a shame because it was a unique and diffrent expeirence to do.

As soon as the children got off the busses the had one assigned Korean intstructor to lead them to an area in the hills that would be their classroom for the day. Each "classroom" was a stairlike platform carved out the side of the hills and divided by a row of trees. so you could look down and up and see another class working as well. The class above us were Korean and the children kept calling "Hello" down to our classroom full of laughter as they tried out their english. Now, I had to explained to our baffled ameruican children how they were almost like "celeberities" because the children may have not had a chance to see americans before and were curious and it was all in good faith that they were calling out to them. This seemed to relax them and they started to try to speak with the Korean children.

Luckily for our classroom we had alot of Korean moms that were able to translate everything for us. They were told about the diffrent barks of trees that made certain colors and how much better it was for the envoirment and thier health. The basic primary color could be made from one plant and then you would combine them to make the secondary colors such as purple, grean and orange. The blue dye smelt really bad and was strong when you got close to it but the children seemed immune to it better than the adults! So the children proceeded to wrap rubber bands around the plain cotton tote bags in order to make their unique patterns.

The children also made a Korean favorite treat...rice cakes made from herbal ingriedents found along the hills. It smelt like the fields of weeds in Italy I used to run in as a child and I couldn't imagine eating it! When the ladies brought them back after they were cooked it reminded me of playdoh. This is when me and my 9 year old started daring each other to eat it and his whole class gathered around at the spectacle of us laughing and pinkie promising eacg other to take a bite! "If you do, I'll do it! ...OK, you go first..no you go first!" ...It tasted like playdoh and so my head went down after the first bite in laughter as I spitted it out and resumed laughing with my son who shouted "Siked you mom!" after I bit it first! ( He is so got it coming to him next time! LOL!!)

We washed our hands before and after our sac lunches in natural cold water piped from the hills and went on a nature walk of what the local things they grew on those hills. Then the Korean instructor happily put her hands up and tilted her head back saying "Look at the full SKY above! a Fall sky!" I was perplexed as I thought it was a regular sky without the smog of the city!

It was great fun and I will say our teachers are VERY underpaid for the things the deal with everyday!

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Photos

Working the dye into the cloth
Red dye

A Full Sky!
Do you mean..."No smog?"