Home is.......

So its been a while.  Winter has come and gone since my last post.  In my defense, we've celebrated several holidays, flown half way around the world, finished a semester, and gotten half way through another.  Abi turned 3, I got snowed in in Seoul for 3 days with the Swim team, and Jessi has left for Vietnam....  Oh yeah, and The force Awakens was released.  Lets get started.

Christmas:

I must say I was not liking Jeju at all before we flew home to NY for Christmas.  Nothing worked like it should, and every task was harder to accomplish than it should have been.  I was in a dark place, and I was starting to regret our decision to do this.  Apparently this is a very common state of mind to new expats, living in a new country is hard when you dont know where anything is, cant read the language, and cant even ask anyone you meet for help.  I was struggling with the new normal...

I was relieved to be back in the States, where I could understand the language, read signs, and basically function as an adult without any help.  We were home for 2 full weeks, one at Jessi's parents in Long Island, and one at mine on the Lake Upstate.  Christmas with both sets of grandparents was great, and snuggling up with our two dogs was a much needed revival of my soul.  We got some good food, and did some things we've been missing.  I even got to see The Force Awakens on a big screen, as opposed to the tiny screen I saw it on in Seopgwipo.It was still awesome and I cant wait for it to be released on Blu Rey (see what I did there?)

It was great to see everyone and to spend some time home.  Home..... That word takes on a whole new meaning when you uproot and move half way around the world.  What is home? Is it where you were raised? Born? went to school?  First lived on your own?  Bought your first house?  Started a family?  Is it the place you sleep every night?  Its not such a simple answer anymore for us.

 They warned us about that when we got here.  As international teachers, we are nomads.  Educational mercenaries even, working for the highest bidder in the most fascinating places.  Want to see the Great Wall and The Forbidden City?  Go to a school in China for a few years.  Got a hankerin to see the Amazon?  Brazil has alot of schools.   Like Chilean wine?  Go work and live there.  Want to see the Great Barrier Reef or the glaciers of Scandanavia?  Easy, sign a contract and move.  Its really pretty cool to think of the things jessi and I will get to see in the next decade, and the things we will get to show Abi.  How many parents get to take their kids to see all of the seven wonders of the world?  How many get to do it, while being paid, debt free?  While saving for college?  That's what we have the opportunity to do.  It still leaves me speechless when I think about it.

When we returned to our little island in the Yellow Sea, We did not sit around.  We had refreshed ourselves on the streets of America, and we were feeling like we needed to explore a bit more.  We have made a real effort to find our way around Jeju-si, the main city on the island, whose main streets are choked with traffic and whose back streets are a warren of narrow, one and two way alleys.  Ive made some headway with a little Korean, I can recognize about half of the alphabet now and picked up a few more words.  We bought some furniture for Abi and Our rooms, so it didnt feel like a college dorm anymore.  Im feeling much better.

Abi turned 3!  We has a great big party in the elementary School Gym / PAC for Abi and two other kids who had similar birthdays.  (They're the ones in the crowns, and here's one of my wife and daughter looking great while I look like slightly warmed -up dog shit).  We put Just Dance Kids on the Big screen, there were balloons everywhere and all of the kids just ran and played until they just couldn't anymore.  It was alot of fun.

About a week after that, I went with the Middle school Boys swim team (Im the assistant coach) to another school in Seoul (Actually closer to Incheon) for our second meet of the year.  It was great, and the boys did extremely well, considering most of them coudnt start off a block at the beginning of the season and only 2 were doing flipturns.  They placed 3rd overall.  While we were there, Jeju received the most snowfall it's had in 30 years.  It was utter pandemonium, and the airport closed for several days.  Needless to say I was trapped in Seoul with the swim team until the airport re-opened.  Our 36 hour trip turned into a 4 day excursion.   Im not quite sure why it took so long to clear a runway of 12 inches of snow...  maybe they didnt have a plow, maybe they were using brooms or something to sweep the snow away, but we eventually got back, tired, but none the worse for wear.  AT any rate, school was cancelled for a day, the kids made a snowman on the playground downstairs and had a grand old time, while daddy was stuck in Seoul...  BTW it was beautiful in Seoul, not a flake of snow, until the day we left.....                        

In early February is Lunar New Year.  The Koreans basically get wasted and howl at the moon for a weekend.  Most things are closed, like grocery stores, museums, gov't offices and such.  The aquarium was not, though, so we organized a trip over.  Its supposed to be the biggest aquarium in Asia, Aqua Planet Jeju.  Its right on the coast near Seong-san ilchuban, in the NE corner of the island.  It was pretty cool.  They used to have whale sharks, I guess, since all of the promo materials have whale sharks on them.  But I guess, like most places, they could not keep them.  Its a shame.  They did have some species of fish Jessi and I had never seen alive before, which is tough to do, including a grouper we couldnt identify.  Any help?.  Abi loved it, and got to see penguins and lots of fish.  The aquarium boasted a spectacular view of the tuft cone offshore and a huge wall of windows facing.  It was a clear day and we had a great view
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I think thats all for now.  Its Service Learning and Leadership week at School. Jessi Left for Vietnam with most of the 9th grade class yesterday.  They are going to build a school or something for an impoverished village there.  Then she gets to see Halong Bay, which has been on her bucket list forever.  Next door, Dominick went to Cambodia with the 8th grade, His mom, Carlina, just left for Guam with the 6th grade.  Upstairs, Anna is gone with the 12 10th grade students who signed up to go to Nepal and help a school build an earthquake retaining wall to stop rock slides.  They got hammered last year in the quake and really needed help. I get to stay here with the 9th graders and most or the 10th grade, who couldnt be bothered to live without wifi for a week to do something amazing.  We are headed to a festival and a park and a nursing home this week.  Im not at all excited about it.

We head to Cebu in the Philipines for Spring Break when jessi gets back, like, RIGHT when she gets back, same day.  We got a great deal from AirBnB for a house on the ocean with a pool, for a few hundred bucks for a week.  AND  we get to see Alexandra Michaels.  Its been a long time, and we are all really excited to see Aya again.

So I started this post in a dark place.  Im not anymore.  Im somewhere cool, doing amazing things I only dreamed of before.  And Im doing it all with my beautiful wife and daughter who are home for me now.  Home is wherever we find ourselves together.  And Im happy that that is good enough for us.

See you next post, hopefully with some warm weather pics from Cebu....  whale sharks maybe????

Its Fall, The temp is dropping and its time for a break!

The past month has been a rough one.  October  is a very busy month for our school.  Grades, parents weekend, Chuseok Break, Fall Break, and the start of second quarter.  Its alot!  We did get some adventuring in however.

We checked out the little unlucky Oreum near the Village.  I think its called Doeksan or something like that, but I just call it saddle back mountain, since it's not nice and round like the other oreum.  The locals consider it unlucky, because it's not nice and round and there are little towers at the 4 cardinal compass points to keep the spirits in.  Theres also a Confucian temple at the base, and a nice little trail that looks like it  sees very little use.

Thats where we are headed Abi

Saddle in the foreground (both peaks) Sanbangsan in the background, Hallasan faint on the left far background.

You can almost  see the trail to the top, its in the dip to the left of the peak.....Most of the trail is at the level of the power lines in the foreground...

Pretty flowers and butterflies

And these beasties, the size of a poker chip are all over the island.

on the main trail

two lovely ladies at the start of the trail.

yes, 150 meters (~450 ft)  vertical in only a kilometer  of trail...  start bottom left, peak is red dot on the right.  Yellow dot is a cave entrance....

trail looks very unused, but still sturdy

Since it was a short trail, we tried the first trail up the mountain.  Up, meaning nearly vertical.  It dead ended at a cave.  Maybe  where the evil spirits live?  I gotta admit, I was not keen to enter....

the deep, dark, dank cave.  Im not going in there....

Jessi and Abi taking a peek

So we went  back down and went around to find the peak.  most of the trail was low around the north side of the mountain and the trail to the top was nearly vertical.  It had us climbing steps and scrambling over boulders.  Glad Abi was in the pack or we wouldnt have made it.  

steep enough that we made several stops to catch our breath.

kinderpack in the wild!

my selfie skills suck!

almost there, you can see the sunlight

The view at the top was stunning.  Had a great vantage over our little corner of the island.

I can see KIS from here! Gold  building on the left (Middle School)  to the black and wite checks on the right (High School).  Weird UFO looking building is Branksome Hall Asia (Canadian international school, IB all girls), just up the hill from KIS

nice view of Sanbangsan and Dragonhead Point on the shore.

Sangaksan (caldera on the shore) Sagaye Beach (on left) and Moseulpo and Daejeong (on right) (we really are in the boonies...)

a much better selfie by me!

Jessi took Abi to Norimae, a little park nearby for kids.  They had a great time.

Yeah...  everywhere.  And HUGE!

seriously kiddo?

She also got a new bike.  All of ther little nursury school friends have one, so we jumped on the bandwagon.  Shes now a full fledged member of Diapers for Life!  the toddle biker gang.

theyre called balance bikes, no pedals or training wheels.  

she gets faster each day!

Ben, Audrey, and Abi after some serious biking.

whos idea was chocolate ice cream at dusk???  

ID like to take a second and describe Parents weekend.  In the states, we have parent teacher conferences.  A 4 hour block of time when parents schedule 15 - 20 minutes of  our time to t alk about their child.  We also have open house, which is a little more structured, when parents follow their childs schedule trough a school day one night, again 15-20 minutes per class, where the teachers go over the expectations of their classroom and give some feeling of what their children will be learning this year.  I always dread conferences, because it's rarely the children who's parents you need to talk to, nor the ones who are great kids.  Its usually the parents who really care, but who's kids could give a rats ass, so theres some mildly banal talk about responsibility and why little Johnny is struggling to hold a C.  (Hint:  its because a C is good enough to not have to repeat next year).

Here, the kids are mostly boarded (they live on campus and rarely see their families) and they are under tremendous pressure to do well (an A- is too low for most, problem is, not everybody is an A student) so we have parents weekend.  Classes are shortened for two days, and parents are encouraged to follow their kids to class for those two days.  They usually sit in the back and just observe.  It was unerving having 5-7 korean parents in the back of my room silently staring at me while I was teaching.  Thursday afternoon we had our fall festival, where clubs had booths of activities and goodies, and elementary and Middle school kids dressed up for halloween.  Friday afternoon, we had scheduled 15-20 minute conferences with the parents of our advisory students, those 10 - 12 students we have in our Advisory class (like a homeroom 2 times a week) Then on Saturday, all of the high school teachers were assembled in the gym from 9-4.  We each got our own table and parents flooded in, usually with their kids as translators and were free to visit with any teacher  they chose for as long as it  took.  Some teachers were in conference from 8:30 - 3:45 when we were released.  It was daunting.  However, Kudos to the 10th grade parents, alot of them brought sweets for the teachers, macaroons, doughnuts, ferro rocher gift packs.  It was sweet.  I will never complain about open house or conference night again.  

Anyway, that kicked off Fall Break!  Most singles and DINKS (dual-income no kids) went globe trotting to Japan, China, Taiwan, Australia, Bali, Phillipines, etc.)  Most of the families stayed home and stay-cationed.  We took a drive around Halla, BBQ'd, Beached, Found Abi a Horse to ride, Game-nighted and had a great time.  Abi is potty training and doing very well, and Halloween was last night.  Despite missing the little comforts of home, its been a really fun time.

Here was our route around Halla, 1115, to 1131 and the tree tunnel and Jeju Horse Park, 1117 and then 11139 back to 1115 and home.

I think this says "Beware!  Ninja Horses!"

Abi loves the little brown horse

Horse pasture on the slopes of Halla, 

The tree tunnel, this is the road that caused the famous "Halla Hurl"

We did not have a repeat of that episode, thankfully.

Then we went to Sangaksan to ride the horses.  Here goes Liam and Peyton

Now it's abi's turn.  The oLd man, lifted her right up and put her on the horse...

she was unsure at first....

then he left her to get Audrey on her horse

Then the old man led the horses and the girls around the paddock a few times.  

ANd theres a big grin....   worth the 5,000 won (<$5.00)

And finally Halloween,  We had a Yoda costume and a few princess dresses, but we forgot the yoda hat.  Abi got to choose.  She chose....wisely!  Proud nerd dad moment.

at first we tried the pants she had on...  orange and white stripes....

then we switched to black pants and her brown boots.  

it really made the outfit...

My little youngling, complete with braid.  Watch out for Anakin kiddo...

some of the other kids getting ready to trick-or-treat around the Village. Then partied at the Moore's downstairs.  I hung out and handed out candy at our apartment.

and of course, it's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown on tv today...

Its been kinda rainy and cold today, but thats ok.  Been dealing with shipping company and customs.  Our long-term shipment finally hit korean soil, a month late.  Now we deal with customs, which is it's own special kind of hell.  Abi slept till 9:30 this morning so we've had a couch day.  Watching movies, playing and relaxing.  Back to school tomorrow.... to start Movember! 

TTFN