Children's Day in Korea: It's Hot

No this post is not about the weather, which is slowly getting warmer and warmer as the days pass, but rather about fire. Specifically a fire that threatened to destroy our school and all who were inside.

As anyone who knows anything about Korea, knows Children's Day(May 5) is a big deal here. So big in fact that I not only get the day off but we also have an all day party the day before and a field trip the day after. So in effect, the kids get three days off with out school work in a row.

Today started out just as planned(and any other day for that matter). The kids came to school. After that I had no idea. I knew that I didn't have to prepare anything for the kids to do but I didn't know what they would be doing. We had a meeting about the what was happening but as our meetings are all in Korean I understood less than when I go to a meeting that is in English. Having understood the order to not teach any classes, I left the kids to busy themselves with playtime until the next scheduled event. It commenced about 20 minutes after classes usually start. (It was interesting to notice the kids react to the change, some of my kids came to class at the usual time and wanted to do flashcards, so we did.)

This event was to go up to the gym and watch the movie Ratatouille, this meant that I was free to do anything else I could think of while still being in the same room. I did some filling out of stationary. Lunch rolled around, a proper (fastfood) feast, but first they had a gift exchange. It was unbelievable. A number of the kids'(parents) brought gifts for all the kids, and it wasn't just a candy bar, it was serious stuff.(It makes me curious to see what will show up on my desk for Teacher's Day(May 15))

Moving right along, the gifts were handed out and the kids were chowing down on some pizza, chicken, kimbap and fruit.

We were right in the middle, (I know it was the middle because only 2 people had spilled their drink, we average 4 a meal) when there was a large electrical(mini explosion) pop and our lights went out. Being that there is a new building going up next door I assumed that they had shorted something out and knocked out our power in the process. Not a big deal.

About 2 minutes later the fire alarm started going off. Because we were supposed to do our earthquake drill today we thought that was what was going on. But we decided to go check what was up anyway and found smoke rising from the stair well.

Long story short we evacuated the kids, quickly and safely, then waited for the fire department to arrive. Being in the city, it didn't take long, about 5 or so minutes later the fire department showed up and saved the day. There was a clinic in the next building and so, while we waited for the parents to come and pick up their children, we went and got checked out for smoke inhalation.

Turns out it was an electrical fire caused by a short in our building's breaker box. Here are some pictures of the fire.