As I stated on the front page, January and February were very busy and brought lots of new experiences for all of us.
New Year!
January started off with a bang - literally. Asia puts everyone to shame with their New Year's celebrations with spectacular fire works and street celebrations. We spent our New Years eve relatively quietly and tucked away in our apartment. Fortunately for us, the apartment is up high on a hillside and has great views though. So at midnight we witnessed a very good fireworks show put on at the Grand Hyatt on the mountain directly across from us. It easily ranks as one of the better fireworks shows we have ever seen with land based 20 story high, lawn sprinkler like geysers and fountains in addition to the more traditional sky borne fireworks. There are far more colors used in fireworks here and several different designs I have not seen back home.
Next year we will likely head downtown to witness the city fireworks first hand and mingle with the crowd for the countdown. We saw brief glimpses on TV and it seems like a wonderfully chaotic place to be. Everyone was holding 2 foot long firework sticks and at midnight they held them up together and lit them off creating a giant canopy of several hundred thousand fireworks directly over the crowd. An amazing sight on TV and I'm sure it will be even better in person. Can't wait.
School...
Next up for us was a return to school for the kids. Our routine here is that the kids must take a cab to school each morning as there is no room for them this year on the morning bus. This makes for an interesting wake up call for Nancy, Sarah and Josh as the cabs here are far from calm and peaceful in their driving. Instead, a typical trip can involve running red lights, narrow misses with pedestrians and motorcycles, and passing other vehicles often using momentarily vacant oncoming lanes of traffic. Nothing like getting the pulse going early in the day.
In the afternoon, Sarah and Josh are able to catch a bus as most of the older kids stick around for after school activities. This makes a more calm end to the day but with evening traffic they are on the bus for about 1 hour. Even so, they seem to enjoy the ride and are usually in good spirits when Nancy greets them at the bus stop. After that, it's time to start the hike up our long, steep hill back home.
Both kids seem to really like the school here (Seoul Foreign School) very well. The teachers seem to be very good and both kids have made many new friends. The international make-up for the students is very interesting as both Sarah and Josh have classmates from Korea, France, England, India, USA, Africa, Japan, and a multitude of other countries. It's this exposure to people from all over the world that will make this assignment so great and the kids get more of it than Nancy and me.
So far, the only dislikes about the school would be the homework. They send it home in droves. And not only book work either. Sarah has made a diorama of New Hampshire, done science experiments on heat and the relative conductivity of materials and also has done internet research to write her paper on George Westinghouse. In all, each night Josh probably has about 1 hour or so of homework and Sarah about 2-3 hours. While I appreciate the scholastic value of some of this, Nancy and I both think it's a bit over the top. But that's the rules of the school so we just plug away.
Nancy Plays...
Once the kids are off to school, Nancy has found that Seoul offers just an amazing wealth of things to do. Fortunately for her, there are also fantastic groups of people here to do them with. Both our apartment complex and the school have groups of expat spouses that get together for a morning coffee and outings a few times a week.
So far, Nancy has been to a Korean antique warehouse, an insiders shopping tour of Itaewon, Dongdaemun and Namdaemun (some of Seoul's best shopping markets), the Leeum fine art museum, a crotchet class, and a guided trip to the open fish market. In addition, she figured out how to work the bus system and is taking Korean classes. And did I mention the morning coffee hours - she's having lots of those too and it's the primary source for our insider tips to living here
And More...
February 7th was one of our favorite days here. That's the day all of our stuff finally arrived. At last no more rock hard rental beds! Our pots and pans, spoons and knives, a toaster that doesn't burn everything, all my PC gear, our books and DVDs, and of course some bulk foods from Nancy's last raid on our home Costco - all finally here. While it has meant lots of work to get things organized again, it was a big deal for us to finally get our things here and really start to feel settled. On Feb 7th, Korea officially became "home".
There are several other activities we've done in this time that I'll cover in other sections. For instance, we've visited the War Memorial and have been on our first Korean ski outing. But as noted in the front page, I'll put those in the Life in Korea section as they have plenty of picts and really deserve a section of their own.
Looking ahead...
The next couple of months look to continue our busy schedule. I will likely hop a plane to at least Bangkok, Thailand for business - maybe also Qingdao, China and a quick trip to the US even. Nancy and her new friends are plotting more adventure shopping and museum visits. And biggest of all, my brother, Jason, visits for the kids spring break the last week in March, so we're planning a trip to the DMZ, a Korean national park, a big Buddhist temple, some knock-off watch shopping, and maybe even a trip down to Pusan. The next update should be a good one it looks like.
See you next update...
Larry
Family Update - March 2007
Me with out my tripod - a very so-so picture of the Hyatt firework fountains.
Seoul Foreign School entrance
Sarah and Josh return from school.
Half-way up "the hill" walking home from the bus stop.
Our moving trucks delivering our "Stuff" from Detroit.
