Driving in Seoul

I must say that I love driving in Seoul. Now that does not mean I like sitting in traffic which is apart of the whole experience. No I enjoy the head to head combat that occurs when vehicles are actually moving forward. It is such an exhilarating experience. It is empowering for me because of the need to take action and really put yourself out there. If you are timid you will get nowhere. There is this blinking yellow light at an intersection by my school, drivers simply hold up their hand to cars basically telling them to stop and proceeding to drive or make turns. If you let this go on you will basically just sit there and not move an inch. After getting the feel for driving off base, I am now fully prepared to give the hand and proceed as needed. I learned that they will get out of the way and stop especially when the van is bearing down on them. Now I just need to watch out for those pedestrians, scooters, bicycles and buses.......now that's an entirely different story!

ALOHA!!!!

Ben is now officially an old man......

I guess that makes me an old lady but we won't go there. We are excited to announce that Ben has been promoted to the rank of LtCol! We had his promotion ceremony this last Thursday. It was attended by both our US and ROK peers. The ceremony was done both in English and Korean as requested by Ben. The children and I helped pin one of the silver oak leafs and Insoo, a very good ROK Marine and friend, pinned on the other. It was a good thing. I am glad that the USMC was able to recognize and distinguish his accompishments by promoting him to this rank. He really does deserve it.

What a month!

Well alot has happened since my last attempt at blogging. The kids and I went to Hawaii for a week, I got a teaching job and school started. It has been a hectic month to say the least! Let me begin from the beginning.....

A friend and mother of 4 asked me if I would be interested in going Space A to the beach. I am always up for adventure and travel so I readily agreed. After much calling around to various MAC terminals it was decided that Hawaii would be our best bet. So all together we took 9 on this adventure. We headed down to Osan not really knowing if we would get on a flight but sure enough we got on a C-5 that was going to Japan and then on to Hawaii. A C-5 is a big cargo plane. We actually sat upstairs in regular old airplane seats. The plane had two windows and we sat flying backwards. It is rather loud in the plane and so we made sure to wear our little orange ear plus that they hand out when we got on. When we landed in Japan we got a room at the Air Force Inn on base. We had to be back at the terminal at 3 a.m. the next morning to continue on to Hawaii. We made sure to get some rest before the next day. We made it to Hawaii on Sunday at 11 p.m......that was 35 hours after leaving Osan. We actually left on Sunday morning and because of the time difference, arrived on Sunday evening. We stayed at the Hale Koa for 5 nights. It really is a beautiful hotel and everything is affordable. I mean, we paid $1.35 for a huge ice cream cone in the middle of Waikiki beach...what more could you ask for. We went to the beach everyday. The kids are phenomenal in the water....they truly are like fish. They don their goggles and go....even Jenna. A nice family on their way off the island gave us their boogie board to use and we all had a blast! After we checked out of the Hale Koa we stayed at the Air Force Inn at Hickam. The kids loved it because it had 2 bedrooms and three televisions with Disney channel! It had so much space for all of us to spread out. We rented a PT Cruiser that we drove around the western part of the island. We went to the beach at Kailua 2x. We enjoyed the beach over there as the sand was soft and the waves were good. We moved over to the Navy Lodge for one more night before heading back to Japan the next day. This time we got to fly in a C-17 and all sat against the wall on fold down jumpseats! The kids did great though! Once we got to Japan we did not have any luck finding a flight back to Korea. School was starting and it made us a little nervous as there were no flights scheduled any time soon. We opted for commercial air. We actually got a group discount as we had such a big group! Overall, it was a good first experience with Space A travel. I would definitely do it again and am keeping my eye on the schedules so I can "plan" our next trip.....maybe to Japan, Alaska, Singapore or even Guam?

Ok....so we went to Hawaii and while I was checking my email in Hawaii, I get a message that the Franciscan School would like to interview me. This is a school that I had sent my resume to in response to a job opening but was told that they had already filed that position. The Franciscan School is an international school for early childhood education. The school takes 2 1/2 - 6 year olds. It really sounded interesting and would allow me to work out in the community. Well, of course I wowed them.....plus they really needed someone so it fit. I am now the teacher of 16 3 year olds.....what was I thinking? I really like it. I do have my work cut out for me but I love the diversity. It feels good to be apart of something that is familiar yet so foreign. Plus Jenna loves it too! She comes to school with me and is so excited to be there. I am happy that I am able to give her such an experience.

Jack and Katie started school too. They go to the elementary school on base and then go to afterschool care right across the street. So far so good. They are both very happy with their teachers. Jack has Mr. Murphy and Katie has Ms. Hand. They have the usual resource classes plus Korean culture which is a nice addition.

That's it for now. I will be sure to write more later....I have lots more to tell!