Family Update - September 2008
Comparatively speaking, the 6 months since our last update have been among our quietest times since moving here. Either that or we are just getting used to living life at a different pace. Probably a little bit of both in reality. Here's a month-by-month account of what we've been up to.
April
Almost immediately after I finished the last update, I was off to Trollhaten, Sweden for a week long business trip and then upon return I immediately jetted off to Shanghai for a quick 3 days of meetings. And that pretty much took care of what remained of April for me.
While I was away, Nancy and the kids did the typical school stuff. Mostly this was a pretty routine time with the only notable exceptions being that Nancy started a Korean Paper Box class (called Hanji) and Josh's elementary school held it's spirit week which included dressing up for different themes...school color day, beach day, nerd day, retro day and pajama day.
All and all, a quiet month for us.
May
Our sedate April gave way to a busy month of May. As the weather warmed we all had a chance to get out a bit more and we started off with a visit to the Buddha's Birthday lantern parade. The parade was great but unfortunately this was one of our few rainy days we had in May, so we had to enjoy it from underneath our umbrellas. The following day was the Korean Children's day celebration so we took the kids to Han Riverside park and flew a new kite that Josh had bought. We had a very nice time and we somehow even kept the kite out of the river.
Then came the fun part of our spring - Nancy's parents and sister arrived for a 2 week visit to Korea. We all had a great time showing off our adopted home country and trying to explain all things Korean to our visitors. There are lots of details of the visit in our Visitors page, but a short summary of their adventures here included: the required trip for all visitors to Namsan Mountain, shopping in Itaewon, trips to Suwon walled city and to Seoraksan National Park, visits to the kid's school for the International Fair and the Spring Concert performances,a formal Korean dinner and dance show at Korea House, and we all got to watch Art marry his new Korean wife at the Nanta Cooking show (you'll have to read about it in the write-up). Must have been a pretty good trip because I hear Schwan's may try to come back next year. I also hear the Korean government may sponsor their next trip as all the shopping caused a 6% increase in the economic indicators! Certainly all of Korea, not least of all us, was sad to see them depart.
Finally, the end of May brought the annual Father & Son day at Seoul Foreign School and Josh and I had a great time running sack races, playing soccer and field hockey, and taking turns in push cart races. This is always a fun time even if this year our team didn't win. We are looking forward to a rematch at the end of September!
June
June brought the typical end of the school year rush with class parties and lots of get togethers with our expat friends as all the wives and kids depart for home leave visits. Nancy and the kids were among the last to leave but in mid-June they hopped aboard a 747 and I became a bachelor for the next 4 weeks.
To pass the time, I went to Yongsan Electrical Market and bought some parts to rebuild my PC...a new 1 Terabyte hard drive, new motherboard and processor, top end video card and a few more gadgets. I then used the old parts and some spares that accidentally were shipped over from the States when we moved to make simple Linux OS PCs for the kids.
Meantime, Nancy and the kids had arrived in the states and began the "annual summer re-stock" event by shopping for school clothes and things we can't get here easily. They also spent lots of time visiting friends and fixing up our "summer home".
July
Home leave continued into July for the family. Around mid-month I finally met up with the everyone at Detroit Metro Airport and we continued on together from there to North Carolina to spend time with my parents. We had a wonderfully relaxing time there with lots of boating and water skiing, a bit of time shopping, and Horse Camp for Sarah. Josh and I also spent some time in Grandpa D's shop working on his airplane, playing with a train set and doing some wood working projects. My brother Jason even dropped in for about a half a week which was a highlight for everyone.
After NC, we returned to MI for a few days of final shopping and I spent some time cleaning our gardens from a year of overgrowth. Unfortunately, we still haven't found a great way to run our home visit schedules and once again failed to visit with all those we had wanted to. So, once again, to those we missed..."Next year we'll do better!"
Our return trip was largely uneventful although it was made a bit more pleasant when we met up with our neighbors the Howers in Naritta, Japan. This cheered the kids up as they have all become best buds. It made returning home (funny how I use that phrase for both US and Korea now) easier to do in the company of such good friends.
August
August was a pretty quiet time which was actually a good thing since it was a very hot month here (upper 90's and high humidity). There was no travel for any of us so we pretty much just used the month to get settled back into our "Asian Living" routine. Our biggest activity was probably just getting the kids resettled
in school which started mid-August. Largely a pretty dull time.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that we did have one somewhat major happening. We have acquired a Korean Dickinson family member - Cindy. Cindy is a 2 year old Yorkshire Terrier we adopted from a local vet. She is Korean and so when she speaks she says "Mung Mung" instead of "Woof Woof" or "Bark Bark" (ok, that's a joke only people who live here will get - Korean onomatopoeia for a dog bark noise is "mung mung" but she doesn't really sound different than a US Yorkiie). Cindy has settled into our family nicely and despite her diminutive size (about 12 pounds) she seems quite confident that she can effectively protect everyone from the pizza and Indian food delivery people. So far, so good.
September
September has been an unusual month so far in that it's been hot as Hades here and summer does not seem at all eager to give in any time soon. Normally a very pleasant month, we've had high temps in the 90's the entire month and even a few pretty good rain storms (it almost NEVER thunders and lightnings here but we've had 3 storms so far this month).
The warm weather has at least made for some nice weekends and we also had a chance to take everyone to a local theme park called Everland with our neighbors. Everland is sort of a combo of 6-Flags, a state fair and tiny bit of Disneyland. Interestingly, Everland was already decked out for Halloween which seemed odd since people here don't really celebrate Halloween. Even so, the park was well set up to avoid the heat (lots of shade) and we made the rounds to most of the big attractions. I think our unanimous favorite was the Amazon River Ride which was a 10 person circular raft which zips down a simulated rapids. Very fun and the little bit of splash was refreshing.
Up Next...
Well, we have big plans for the remainder of this year. I for one, have lots of travel ahead. Over the last half of the year I will be traveling to each of my regional business units so that means stops in Australia, India, Thailand, and at least 2 trips to China. Then hopefully around US Thanksgiving it looks like my parents and our family friends, the Odendahls, may drop in for visits. Additionally, there are several fun school festivals and we have several Korean holiday's coming up which will allow for more local exploring.
Finally, we also have a great trip to Thailand in the works for Christmas. If all goes as planned, we'll spend a few days in Bangkok and then spend about a week on the island of Koh Samui doing elephant trekking and general beach bumming. Jason is even planning to join us there which means there will be free baby sitting...I mean some great family time...ahead of us.
That's all for now. Stay in touch and as always...If you find yourself in Asia, drop us a line and plan for a visit. We love to have company.
Ahn Young He Kah Say Oh (Go in Peace)
Buddha's birthday - fire-breathing dragons on parade. Right click - zoom - full screen for best viewing. Sorry - takes time to load.
Kite flying on the shores of the Han River. Our home is on the mountain just over Sarah's hands.
The Schwan's and the kids on the steps of Geongbokgung Palace.
Nancy's Hanji boxes - Korean Paper Boxes.
"Chay Kay Cindy Im Ne Dah". translated..."My dog Cindy it is."
All of us at Double RR Ranch during our summer visit to North Carolina. The horse is Winston...he's not part of our regular traveling posse.
The Dickinsons at Everland amusement park. Happy Halloween!
