................Taking Flight...............: InKAS Mentoring Event to Lotte World

I had to get up a little bit early to make it out to Lotte World as it is completely on the other side of Seoul from me (I'm northwest and it is southeast). I met Jacob in the subway and we rode to Lotte World together. We arrived a little bit before our meeting time with the group so we grabbed a muffin for a snack. Everyone arrived and Eric handed out our tickets and money. Jacob and my mentees' family weren't arriving until 2pm so we had some time to spend on our own. My translator also wasn't going to be arriving until the same time. Jacob's translator was Grace; his normal translator wasn't available today. Anyway, Grace went with another group for a bit because most rides were for pairs or groups of 4 so she wanted to balance out another group. Jacob and I walked around and looked at rides we thought our kids would like. We were a little worried because Yoon Gyeom is kind of small and we didn't know if he could ride on many of the rides or not.

Around 1:30 Grace met up with us and we looked for somewhere to eat. We picked a restaurant called Doni Burgers (which is a small chain) and ordered our lunch. We found out our family wouldn't arrive until 3. Eunha, my translator contacted me and I went to go get her and give her ticket to enter the park. We met up with Jacob and Grace and we had lunch. The four of us walked around a little and looked at different souvenirs; the hot thing are headbands with ears or bows on top. We all modeled and took pictures with different headbands on. We went to the entrance to wait for our family and they came a little late. The kids looked a bit crabby and I guess it was because they had orchestra practice before meeting us. First we started walking around and looking for a ride to go on, and then realized everyone wanted to do something a bit different. So Jacob took Yoon Gyeom to the arcade and Grace, Eunha and I took Yoon Joo and Yoon Gyung (the oldest sister) to the Sinhbad ride per Yoon Joo's request. As we were waiting in line, we remembered that we had to meet for the group photo at 4:15 and it was 3:45! We kept an eye on the time and watched as we inched forward. We made it on the ride and finished just in time. The ride was a boat on water with two small dips; the rest was kind of boring and told a story with moving mannequins and other decorations. When the ride was over, we went to meet the group and did the picture. Then we had the boys join us and we went to get ice cream. After ice cream we went to another ride, designed after the movie "How to Train your Dragon" where the car moved through the area and you shot at animated dragons on the walls.

The kids were getting hungry, so we went to get a snack. Yoon Joo and Yoon Gyeom got col-pop (remember this from my winter camp? The cola and popcorn chicken combo). After our snack we went to look at the bumper car ride, but the wait was over an hour for 2-3 minutes. We decided we'd have our group meet up with Katelyn and her mentee; her mentee and ours' moms were hanging out together and traveling home together, so we wanted them to be together. They went to go on a ride and Jacob and I decided we'd head home. We had dinner at Emart, watched some tv and then he left. What a long day!