Aroa Al Masri, left, with the other students chosen for the trip.
Aroa Al Masri, left, with the other students chosen for the trip.
A Kāpiti College student has recently returned from the trip of a lifetime, and she’s still reeling from the experience.
Aroa Al Masri has recently returned from South Korea, after a short stint on a Korean entertainment television show titled After School: School Trip.
She was one of five Kiwi students lucky enough to be chosen for the trip, and the only Kāpiti student, with the other five students coming from schools in Tauranga, Hawke’s Bay, and Auckland.
The trip occurred in August, and as soon as they stepped off the plane, Aroa and the other students were on camera.
“They wanted to film us as soon as we got out the gate.
“At first I was nervous, but eventually the cameras became like a second part of my body – they even filmed you while you were sleeping.”
Their first day in South Korea came with a lot of new experiences, including trying out the country’s national sport Taekwondo, wearing hanbok (traditional Korean clothing), touring a palace in the middle of Seoul, and eating beef intestines.
After a busy start to their trip, the students spent the next day practising as monks, which is very common in South Korea, and Aroa said they performed about 180 bows over the course of the day.
Then they had a home-cooked meal from a Korean restaurant that specialised in homemade tofu before trying out Olympic virtual reality (VR), which was introduced when South Korea hosted the Winter Olympics in 2018.
While the VR was used for more extreme events like virtually climbing Mount Everest in the Olympics, Aroa said she and the other students used it to practise bouldering and racing each other.
Aroa Al Masri and the other students in their school uniforms.
On their third day, the students took a three-hour train to the beachside city of Busan, where their host school was, and over the next few days the students got to experience Korean schooling.
One of the things they did was compete against the Korean students in relay races, push up competitions, and rugby games.
“The Koreans beat us fair and square at the relay and push up competitions but thank goodness we absolutely smashed them with the rugby, because that would’ve been really embarrassing.”
On the last day, the students were interviewed about how they felt about the experience, and then “the cameras went away”.
They caught a 1am bus ride back to Seoul, and “the sun rose as we reached it.”
“Then we went and stocked up on convenience store food because it’s better than any Pak’nSave or New World we have here.”
It was a life-changing experience, and Aroa said she already has plans to go back for a gap year after she finishes school.
“I’d go back and do it all over again in a heartbeat. I loved it so much.”
And she made a lot of friends too, not only does she keep in contact with the other students who went, but the film crew’s translator also still messages her.
