Classroom Decorating

The start of a new school year in March brought with it a few big changes in the world of teaching. First of all, I got two new co-teachers, as one of my previous co-teachers had to leave the school and the other one wanted to switch to teaching homeroom. Thankfully, my two new co’s are very friendly and kind. I also switched to primarily teaching 6th grade, three times a week, with one day of 4th grade too.

I’ve also found my role in the classroom significantly diminished, which basically means I don’t get to plan as much and have less responsibility to prepare materials. Which means I have a bit more time on my hands at work. I’ve also found that the more I get used to teaching, the easier lesson planning gets. So this semester I’ve had a lot more free time on my hands.

All of this free time has gone into classroom decorating.

This is The Point Board, for grades 3 and 4. The students are divided into teams, and compete for points throughout the class. Fourth grade is ridiculously competitive. When they were in third grade, the Korean English teacher would give stamps that added up to coupons. Coupons could be exchanged for candy, or they could be used in class as a sort of “trump card” to automatically get to answer a question, no matter who else was raising their hand. All of the students were constantly using coupons in class. So basically, they were competing for coupons to use to get more coupons to use to get more coupons…not adding up to anything. I figured they would tire of that eventually, but the students have brought it back this year in 4th grade, introducing the convoluted system to their new Korean English teacher! I would think by the end of the year, they’ll have some higher expectations in the terms of rewards…

This is 6th grade’s version. Team 3 is the winner! Team 1 was misbehaving and has to stay after class to clean the classroom. 😛

This is the door to the office I share with my co-teacher. The sign was her idea. But I was quite pleased with how it turned out.

At the start of the semester in March and April, I was incredibly ambitious with decorating for each unit in the text book. The English center has a big fuzzy board that didn’t get used at all my first few months here, and I was determined to put it to use. So my co-teacher and I put together some rather elaborate wall displays…

Lesson 2: Is this York Street?

When’s your birthday?

Mine’s August 27th.

Now that 6th grade has three days of English class a week instead of two, there’s actually a bit of time to do some fun stuff beyond the text book. For lesson 3 “I like Spring,” the students made mini season books. In these pictures you can get a glimpse of the students’ English level…which is not very high. But some of their books were really pretty.

Our display space.

Every 6th grade English class in the city of Ulsan has a one-time trip to the local “English Experience Center,” where they have 2 hours of unique English classes. Last year, my job on these days was to lead groups of students through basic everyday life sort of dialogues. It was nothing short of a nightmare, with students trying to run away, beat each other up, destroy the school’s props and go to sleep on the floor while I tried to get them through dialogues far beyond their level that none of them could read. In hindsight, I probably should’ve created some material more suited to their level. Oh well…

Luckily, this year things were different. I was given 40 minutes to do whatever I wanted with the students in the classroom. The school provided a Powerpoint and activity about ants, but I decided it would be more fun to do a class about strange-looking animals. I tried to focus more on the evolutionary aspect, like why the animals looked the way they did, and what purpose their odd traits served in their survival. Which was a bit difficult to do in English with some of the classes. After looking at several strange-looking animals, the students had to design their own. They had some really cool creations! Overall, I thought it was quite fun.

The class was called “Crazy Animals”, because I knew crazy was a word the students would recognize. I felt if I used “weird” or “strange” not all of them would understand, and I wanted to have everyone together on the same page at least for the subject of the class.

A lot of students drew animals that ate people…

Help me! NO! – drawn by the sweetest, shyest little girl

The Kiss Dog. It has big mouth so it can kiss for person. It live in a Africa.

It’s delicious!

One last thing – a prepositions picture I put together for 4th grade. I realize the perspective is far from perfect, which is rather unfortunate for a lesson on prepositions, and the position of the box/Spongebob are debatable. But I’m still into it:

The robot is in the bed. The doll is under the sofa. The glove is on Obama’s hand.

I’m kind of hoping some of these classroom decorations outlast my time at the school, so I can leave behind a bit of a “legacy”…but if not that’s all right too, they’re serving a purpose now. To help the students. Not just to keep me busy in the afternoons. Really…

Punk ROK

I really love live music, and back home there’s a pretty good number of bands I try to see every time they come through town. Ever since I was 14 and started getting into “punk” music, going to “shows” has been a rather big part of my life, providing a sort of cathartic release with all the dancing, jumping around and singing along. While I may have outgrown some of the music, my concert-going days are far from over. Being on the other side of the world from all my old standbys can be a bit tough at times, and I’ve felt compelled to seek out some stand-ins. Because sometimes I’ve just gotta dance, and the K-pop/techno/top 40 music at the clubs doesn’t completely do it for me. Luckily when the need strikes, there’s a big enough scene here to keep me satisfied.

This list may best be summarized as “five bands for the slightly homesick American expat in Korea”:

Nachopupa

Nachopupa is an incredibly stupid band name as far as I’m concerned (unless it means something in Korean that I’m unable to translate with my phone dictionary, which is entirely possible) but they play some good Irish punk – complete with accordion and tin whistle. They seem to do mostly upbeat covers of traditional Irish songs, similar to Flogging Molly, and they do a mean cover of “Drunken Lullabies” too (check out the video). They’re based out of Busan, so I’ve been able to catch them a few times and they’re always good for lots of jumping and sing-a-longs.

The Southbay

I saw The Southbay at Busan’s Battle of the Bands back in November, where they played a bunch of covers from Rancid’s …And Out Come the Wolves that had me bouncing off the walls reliving my sophomore year of high school. Most of their music sounds like it could be Rancid, if Tim Armstrong was singing in Korean. But regardless of whether they’re the most original band or not, I think their music and style are super fun. This video shows just how much they rock:

SKASUCKS

Nothing’s brought back high school memories as strongly as this band’s familiar blend of ska/punk. When I saw them in Busan, they even did a cover of Operation Ivy, which unfortunately I seemed to be the only one really excited about. They had lots of skank-able songs, and even encouraged “skanking” at one point – a culture-transcending dance move that’s just as popular with the kids over here as it is at a Bosstone’s show back in the US. It’s nice to know this music’s made it all around the world.

RUX

This is some of my favorite music from the past 8 months. Online I’ve seen them described as “street punk”, a genre I’m not very fond of as it’s usually associated with annoying teenage boys with ridiculously high mohawks and spike-covered leather jackets. But to me, their music is just super energetic and fun. I hope I’ll get to see them play some time so I can dance around.

Suck Stuff

These guys win for worst band name and lamest “tough-guy” picture, but I can’t help but enjoy the music. It’s also a bit reminiscent of Rancid, who seem to be pretty popular over here. I have yet to see them live, as they too seem to play exclusively in Seoul, but based on this amazing music video I can only imagine it would be tons of fun. I also can’t help but snicker at the accent on the one singer in this song.

Seonyudo

Memorial Day weekend came a week late for this American this year, as Korea’s version of the holiday is June 6th. Luckily, it’s still celebrated with a Monday off of work, and I decided it would only be fitting to usher in the spirit of summer with some camping – on a small island off the west coast of Korea. Seonyudo caught my attention way back in November, when I stumbled across some random blog raving about the islands’ beauty and enticing combination of bike paths, scooter-rentals, and lack of cars. I didn’t want to get my hopes up or anything, but online reports made it sound like our trip would be nothing short of an epic adventure.

About camping: I am by no means an experienced camper. Luckily for me, hiking and general outdoorsy-ness are incredibly popular in this country, so cheap gear is everywhere. I picked up the cheapest tent I could find – 30,000 won at Lotte Mart (Korea’s Wal-mart). Combined with a 10,000 won waterproof picnic blanket from Home Plus and the cheap sleeping bag left behind from the previous tenant of my apartment, I hoped I’d be set.

Getting to the islands from Ulsan is no easy task, to say the least. It required 3 buses, 1 train and 1 ferry, starting on a late Friday evening KTX to Daejeon. Travel wisdom from the weekend: book trains well in advance on a holiday weekend in Korea. In Daejeon, we stayed at my favorite love motel (my favorite for its name – the Bijou Motel, close proximity to the train station, kind ajumma who runs the place, and being the only place I’ve stayed in Daejeon). After one stop at a chicken and beer hof, we called it an early night in anticipation of waking up to catch a 9:30am bus to Gunsan.

Gunsan is a small port city in the middle-ish of the west coast. There were a surprising number of foreigners milling about the bus station for such a small city; apparently we weren’t the only ones taking a weekend island trip. We had a bit of trouble tracking down the #7 city bus to the ferry terminal, which we never would’ve found without the help of a very friendly young Korean woman. After a 30 minute wait for the bus and a painfully slow 45-minute ride all through town, we finally made it to the ferry.

Waiting in the ferry station, we found a rather intriguing English map of the islands, featuring what appeared to be several small villages, some beaches, no fewer than three ‘Mud Flat Experiencing Fields’, and the mysterious Golden Rain Tree Colony. Oooooooh.

The ferry ride was a pleasant but rather unexciting hour and a half. Apparently it’s also possible to ferry to China from Gunsan, which – considering the speed of our ferry – must take about a week! But something fun to think about nonetheless.

And finally! We were on Seonyudo. Many golf cart-taxis waited around the port, taking people to pensions or on island tours. We walked over to the beach to set up our tents. On the way, we came across a big group of scantily-clad, already drunk foreigners, and decided to set up our tent far, far away.

The camping area was a small strip of beach separating the sea.

Tent set-up successful, ready to tackle the wilderness.

Our camp-site. Perfect! Except for the lack of showers…

By the time we got our tents set-up, we were hungry and eager to sample some of the island’s seafood. We chose the most inviting seafood restaurant on the main road and ordered three of the cheapest things off the menu – raw fish with rice, seafood noodle soup, and 산낙지. For those unfamiliar, 산낙지 (san-nak-ji) is live octopus. It’s not actually alive, but just recently chopped up so that the legs are still wriggling about. Like how chickens run around after their heads have been chopped off. This more or less made the dish look like a plate of live worms. Yummmm! But it actually tasted great – much better than worms, I’d imagine. By far the freshest tasting octopus I’ve had in 8 months!

Here they are in action:

Eating live octopus can be a bit of a challenge. The tentacles still suction to the plate, and also the insides of your mouth. Apparently they can also suction to your throat on the way down, which is a potential choking hazard (but mainly only if you’re really drunk). The tentacles very conveniently wrap themselves around your chopsticks, which makes picking up the thin little ends much easier. All in all, considering my rather recent 4.5-year stint as a vegetarian, I wasn’t nearly as grossed out as I expected. I’d even do it again!

Our energy sufficiently replenished, we decided we couldn’t be there another minute without getting on some scooters. I was pretty anxious about getting them, as the walkways were pretty packed with golf carts and people walking and biking, but the excitement of driving a scooter quickly triumphed over any anxieties.

The process for renting a scooter went like this: find bike/scooter rental stand. Wait while the owner tracks down five scooters/borrows one from random guy riding past. Pay 15,000. Get a 30-second demo of how they work, and a quick reminder not to drink and drive. And go!

No license? No ID? No insurance? No problem. Seonyudo is perhaps the easiest place to rent a scooter anywhere. I guess the scooters aren’t allowed on the ferries, as they didn’t seem at all concerned with us running off with them. They also didn’t seem particularly concerned with anyone’s safety, but I guess people don’t really sue each other so much over here.

Aside from a near-crash trying to avoid a golf-cart-taxi on a steep hill approximately 45 seconds after starting, I found scooter-driving to be pretty easy, and very fun. There’s nothing quite like zooming along the coast, wind blowing through your hair, nothing but ocean as far as the eye can see to either side…

Scootering around, we passed many groups of touring Koreans, the older and drunker of which thought it was very funny to wave and shout hello! and cheer us on. The people we met on the island all seemed to be on vacation, and much friendlier than normal.

Seonyudo connects to two other islands by small bridges, which are bikable, and pose an interesting challenge when full of other tourists.

In an hour, we found we were pretty much able to explore all the island paths reachable by scooter. The islands are beautiful, but certainly not very big. As far as the strange sights listed on the map, I’d say Korean Tourism advertising has a tendency to give a name to every little spot that doesn’t necessary merit such a significant title. There was unfortunately no “Golden Rain Tree Colony” to be found (although perhaps there was and we just didn’t spot it). There were plenty of mud flats open for experiencing, but we did not partake.

Returning to our beach at dusk, we were surprised to find this land bridge connecting the beach to a small island. Many people were out with flashlights, seemingly scavenging for something. Oysters? Seaweed? We weren’t sure.

I quickly realized I had forgotten to bring bug spray, a potentially very hazardous mistake. Apparently unavailable anywhere on the island, we settled for some bug-repellent incense and hoped for the best. Burning that while hanging out in the evenings, and staying inside my tent for the rest of the night, I came away from the weekend with only 4 mosquito bites – a record low for me and camping weekends! Maybe I’m not as attractive to Korean mosquito, or there’s something in this bug-repellent incense – either way, I like it.

We spent our evenings on Seonyudo making our own entertainment on the beach with some drinks, some music (in particular this one), and a deck of cards. At one point we were joined by some jolly, drunk and bicycling Seoul National University professors, who I was surprised to find had recently moved back from Ohio. Apparently, the pensions back in the main part of town provided more entertainment – bonfires, drumming, fireworks and noraebangs all night. But I was much happier to have some peace and quiet on the beach.

Is there anything better to wake up to? I think not.

And on the other side of our tents: some mud. Prime for experiencing!

The morning sun blanketed the beach in mist. Many people were out on the sand in the low tide, digging for more things. You could actually rent little shovels for 1,000 won to dig for things, right next to the bike rentals.

“The ghosts of Seonyudo”

After a rather ridiculously long breakfast/lunch at the single restaurant we could find that served something other than seafood (which we all agreed we couldn’t stomach before noon), where we met a few more groups of vacationing foreigners – including one from Birmingham, my neighbor! – we rented some bicycles from the scooter guy.

“We are on a tandom bicycle.” Cute.

I was stuck on a small ridiculous bike for some reason, completely inept at handling the island’s steep hills. It’s name was “The Raging Dwarf”, as given by us.

On our bike ride, we found many interesting things:

A lighthouse shaped like two praying hands.

Being reclaimed by nature.

Some big rocks beckoned us off-trail for a while, where we found many giant gross bugs. Luckily, they were quick to scatter wherever we were walking. There were so many running over the rocks, it reminded me of the masses fleeing from Godzilla or some such.

They ranged in size from 1-3 inches. Really. Eeeeewwwww.

Our private beach on the other side of the buggy rocks.

A refreshing foot bath in the sea.

A view of our beach, or what would be a view of our beach if you could see it through the mists.

Midway through our second day on the island, we were all feeling a bit in need of a shower. But without any sign of a jimjilbang or public facilities anywhere, the only option seemed to be the ocean. The water wasn’t very warm – quite freezing, actually – and it was a rather gray day, but we could not be deterred. Bathing in the ocean in your clothes is a surefire way to attract a lot of attention, by the way.

The islands rise out of the mists…

…and into more mists.

Our bike tour ended with the steepest hike in my life, which involved going both up and down on (mostly) all fours.

More island eats”

The most popular seafood on the island appeared to be cuddlefish, sea slugs, and these giant, flat, crazy-eyed guys–

Mmm…looks…delicious?

These kinds of fish were hanging up drying everywhere. I think they look super gross all mangled together in that bag. Blech.

Our last night on the island got really cold. Unfortunately, the camping area doesn’t really have anywhere to build a fire, or much to use to make one. Some guys had one going in a big oil can, but unfortunately we hadn’t come so prepared. We gathered what sticks and dry things we could find and were given some charcoal by nearby picnicers. Alas, pine needles only last for so long, and so I spent the night shivering in my sleeping bag. Next time, I’ll be better prepared!

The only other thing we needed to complete our American-style Memorial Day weekend was some barbeque. Lucky for us, bbq is ridiculously omnipresent in this country. While searching for a spot, we found some older Korean men who insisted on giving us all shots of whiskey and some raw fish. It was extremely fresh, as they were taking the fish still wriggling from a bucket and slicing them up right in front of us. I’m not sure why Korean people tend to be so willing to share their food with strangers, but that’s one cultural difference I’m a pretty big fan of.

Our last morning on the island, we had a very nourishing breakfast of Korean-twinkies and Doritios, quickly packed up and went for one last walk. Where we came across a rather startling sight:

It’s difficult to see, but this is a group of ajummas, high up the side of a mountain, climbing a sheer rock face sans any harnesses. I wish I could describe this scene better. They were cackling away as their friends scrambled up to join them. There seemed to be some ropes you could hold on to for support, but from our view down below it looked like a climb better suited to climbing harnesses and ropes. Crazy ajummas.

Seonyudo had a whole nother breed of ATV-riding, rock-face-scaling ajummas, really not to be messed with.

On the ferry home, many people had water bottles and containers filled with things from the sea – small crabs, shellfish, some animal that looks like a little stick. It was interesting. We sat next to a woman who kept offering us shrimp-flavored snacks. She didn’t want anything to do with our Doritos. Again, I’m a big fan of the Korean food-sharing culture.

And thus began our somehow-11-hour journey back to Ulsan… Book train tickets ahead on holiday weekends! Lesson learned. A 3-hour delay in Daejeon can be improved by checking into a Love Motel for a shower.

Quite a long post for such a small island, I realize. While they’re a bit touristy, the islands are a ton of fun and I’m definitely glad I made the trek out to visit!

A Whale of a Weekend in ‘Whale Meat City’

Ulsan is second-best known in Korea for its history of whale fishing and contemporary whale non-fishing, which it celebrates every year with a big Whale Festival. (What it’s best known for is Hyundai, if you were wondering.)

For four days over the weekend of May 25-28, Ulsan went whale crazy with whale drawing, cake-baking, ice sculpting and singing competitions, whale meat tasting, whale watching, and whale hunting re-enactments. It all sounded like some kind of strange county fair. Whale ice sculpting in May and ‘whale singing’ sounded particularly ridiculous. I was also very much looking forward to tasting whale meat, as I’ve never had the opportunity before.

Also, I realize this whaling tradition is a bit controversial. I attended the festival with a curiousity as to the cultural and traditional aspects of whaling in Ulsan. But more on the controversy later .

The festival was in two parts of the city – downtown on the Taehwa River and at the Whale Museum over on the ocean. On Saturday I checked out the Taehwa part of the festival, where I found they were running lots of dragon boat rowing races.

This was the first time I’d seen the dragon boats in action, as for the past 8 months they’ve been sitting under the Taehwa Bridge. On the river there’s a big picture advertisement with a bunch of young, buff foreigners rowing. Unfortunately, the racers we saw were all old.

The festival grounds had all kinds of whale decorations.

You know what makes whales better?

Avatar.

I’m not sure what this smurf is reaching for, or what they’re doing in the middle of this whale.

This one doesn’t even have a whale. It’s like they’re just trying to violate as many copyright laws as they can in one place.

One section of the festival was full of straw huts, supposedly used by the prehistoric whale-hunting Koreans. A bunch of people dressed in very authentic leopard-print costumes put on a drumming and jumping/dancing performance with some big traditional masks and lots of neon. It ended with them going to the river, getting into a dragon boat, and attacking the big floating mechanical whale (see top of post). It was …interesting, to say the least.

One of Ulsan’s biggest attractions for out-of-town visitors are some petroglyphs depicting this prehistoric whale fishing. A very popular tent at the festival was handing out simple ink prints of the petroglyphs, and there’s also a big copy of them up at the Whale Museum in Jangsaengpo. The historical aspect of whaling in Ulsan seems to be a pretty big deal.

I’m not sure if this guy was a part of the festival, or if he just decided it was a good day to take his horse for a ride down the river. But I like the juxtaposition in this picture. Sometimes Ulsan can be a very strange place.

The festival left plenty of space for lounging around the park, and it was a perfect day for a picnic. My friends and I found some familiar foreigners who offered us some of their leftover whale meat. Apparently they had been selling fried whale and whale burgers earlier on, but had unfortunately stopped. I tried a bit of fried whale, and it tasted pretty good. The meat inside was very dark. It kind of tasted like a fish stick, but a bit heartier. Should you ever come across some, I suggest you try it.

While enjoying my fried whale, a local rock band played on a small stage. I was quite surprised to hear them play “Creep,” “Best of Me” by the Starting Line, and “American Idiot.” Radiohead and Green Day are in all the noraebangs and pretty popular, but the Starting Line?? I hadn’t heard the Starting Line since sophomore year of high school, and considering they were never all that big in the US, I never thought they would’ve been popular here. The audience seemed to be mainly older people who had sat down for a rest, and a few groups of adults clustered around tables of fried chicken and soju, who had to no idea what any of the music was. I appreciated hearing those high school favorites quite a bit.

On Sunday I went out to the coast, to “The Whale’s Hometown” in Jangsaengpo, an area of the city I had never ventured to before. For good reason – the only things out that way other than the Whale Museum and “Whale Experience Hall” are the immigration offic and tons and tons of factories.

The Whale Museum had an excellent view:

…of a port full of factories. Lovely.

The coolest part of the day for me were these giant trash-sea creature tricycles:

Looks like they borrowed some of the animal print spandex from the prehistoric whale-hunting performers at the Taehwa. I think these fish-bikes pull it off much better.

Of course, Jangsaengpo was ridiculously whale-themed as well:

The ticket office.

A whale and dolphins swimming down the side of a building!

This looks a bit more like a dolphin. Or maybe a beluga?

Of the two museums, I thought the “Ulsan Whale Experience Hall” was much cooler. It was basically a mini-aquarium with some extra whale info thrown in.

Dolphins swimming over my head. Check out the ajosshi in the suit, hat and sunglasses. Total baller.

I got to ride a dolphin!

The entire community coming together for the whale carving. There were lots of somewhat graphic whale carving pictures.

The downside to the “experience hall” was seeing way more dolphin fetuses than I ever wanted to see. They were pretty gross, and contributed very little to my whale learning experience for the day.

This was in the whaling museum. Konglish, or art school student’s attempt to BS a modern art description? Hmmm….

Along the main road through Jangsaengpo were several whale meat vendors. I didn’t partake, as I wasn’t that hungry and it seemed a shame to waste a plate of whale for just one taste. But it looked like it was raw, cut from various different parts of the whale in all different shapes and colors.

Only 10,000 a plate!

I ended the day at the main stage, where I was very disappointed to find the “whale singing competition” was neither people singing like whales nor actual whales singing. Talk about false advertising! But luckily there were still some music oddities to behold, like as this funk/elevator-jazz/traditional Korean fusion group:

There was also some great drumming.

Although my favorite part was watching this little guy dance and try to eat bubbles:

After a weekend filled with whale-everything, there was one thing I had left to try – whale bread! It was nothing special, really – just the typical read-bean filled waffle dough pressed into the shape of a whale. But quite tasty. And cute!

After consuming my red-bean-filled whale bread, I officially hit my whale saturation point for the weekend. While I didn’t really come to understand any more about Ulsan’s stance on whaling, I would say all the oddities of the festival made me appreciate my little city that much more.

—————————————————-

Inspired by the festival, and this restaurant down the street from my apartment (one of many I’ve come across in the city), I did some research on the subject.

(Whale meat)

The most interesting article I came across on the topic is from the The Korea JoongAng Daily, a newspaper I’ve never heard of before. This article gives Ulsan the name “Whale Meat City” (another thing I’d never heard before).

In 2005, Koreans were consuming about 150 tons of whale meat per year, 80% of which happens in Ulsan. This is nothing compared to Japan though – they ate 4,8000 tons! Although there are about 3 times as many of them than there are of Koreans.

I was interested to read that whale meat has apparently been getting increasingly more popular. In 2009, the number of whale restaurants in the city quadrupled to over 100. The one near my apartment seems to be recently shut down, or otherwise inactive since I moved in last October (maybe it’s a front for something else?). None of the Koreans I’ve talked to seem to be really into eating whale, so I was pretty surprised by that statistic.

Commercial whaling was universally banned by the International Whaling Commission in 1986. Which means the whale served in restaurants has to have been caught “accidentally” in fishing nets intended for something else, or from whales washed up on shore. But there’s quite a bit of controversy as to whether or not this is actually upheld, of course.

The government has said it will pay people $10,000 to report any gray whale sightings to discourage fishing. Although there does seem to be a bit of incentive for fishermen to keep fishing – a 6-meter-long (19.6 ft) whale sells for 25 million won ($21,000). Wow.

I was very curious as to whether I’d see any protesters at the festival, but there didn’t seem to be any. In years past, Greenpeace has been out:

While I certainly don’t agree with whale fishing, I was happy to participate in Ulsan’s whale culture for the weekend, including tasting whale meat. And I’d do it again. Although perhaps if I watched The Cove, I would feel otherwise.

One final final thing in closing: another clip of the traditional music and dance performances from Jangsaengpo. Jazz lady had a killer voice.

Beware of Brontosaurus!

As seen out the bus window, somewhere between Gwangju and Wando. How awesome is that?? Are there more giant dinosaur murals on mountains in Korea?? Hopefully I can stay awake on some more bus rides to find out!