Leap of Faith

Of course another busy week. Our new/used car was delivered to the school at the end of last week. It arrived without incident and was more or less in the exact shape as when we bought it. I was half expecting to have the car arrive with a different motor, a seat missing, four bald tires or something of the sort. But it arrived, it started when I turned the ignition, and Q and I drove it home without even getting lost. Overall it was a success.

J had an overnight V-ball trip on Friday/Saturday. It was the first time she has been away from Q overnight since he was born. The team did really well. J will tell you all about it I'm sure. She has a couple games this week and next before leaving for a week long tournament. So in essence this past weekend was just preparing her for the week-long hiatus from Q.

On Sunday we decided to load the family in the car and head out for some excitement. We went to our neighborhood Mexican restaurant and had treated ourselves to some Korean style TexMex. It was actually better than it sounds. The chef went a little overboard with the cinnamon but I still enjoyed it.

After lunch we scooted (that is what you do in our car because it's so small) over to Yuldong Park to meet up with friends for some bungee jumping. For some reason or another it was a very busy day for the bungee jumping operation. We ended up waiting to jump for quite some time. (By quite some time I mean like over 2 hours) This was tempered by company and the fact that people were making occasional beer runs. It was blast as those of you who have bungee'd know. The jumpers ran the gamut of age and gender. It was fun watching everyone get really nervous but still take the plunge when it came time to leap off the edge. Here is a comic I made of a couple of the jumpers. I left the "thought" balloons blank and posted a hard copy of this in the staff lounge and asked people to fill in the balloons with what they think was going through the minds of the jumpers at the moment represented in the photo.
Here is what we look like standing on the ground.


We got our tickets home this past week as well. We will be arriving on the 13th of December and staying through the 1st of January. Drop us a line and let us know if you'll be around.

I got a great email from Bryan about some motorcycle riding he's been doing which planted the seed of a short moto trip in my mind during our time back home. Now I just need to figure out where to go. Somewhere warm I'm thinking.

We need to name our car and are open to suggestions. I know it is hard to name a car without ever seeing it but just imagine a small silver hatchback. I'll try and get some pics up soon.

Adios,

Today was our first day back at work after a really nice weeklong vacation. One thing cool about going back to work was realizing I was glad to see my coworkers. It made me realize again that I work with some really cool people. My students were well behaved to boot.

I ran into Julia on the 4th floor, which doesn’t usually happen since kinder is located on the 2nd, and everything she needs is either on her floor or below. She looked a bit concerned so I suspected something was not right. She told me that Quinn took a header face first on the ground. He has started running everywhere and scoots around at a good clip. I don’t think the rest of his reflexes have caught up with his new found foot speed. Anyway he was zipping along and next thing you know he was spread eagle on the floor and had used his face to break his fall. Like they say, like father like son; the only difference is that he wasn’t on a bike. He knocked a tooth loose, busted his lip, and scared the poop out of himself. He was bummed that he might loose a tooth that he actually just got in the last week.

The nursery ladies were beside themselves. They rushed him to the school nurse who immediately made an appointment at the dentist’s office. Julia took the afternoon off and went with him to the dentist’s office since Q didn’t bring his wallet and probably couldn’t pay for it himself. The dentist looked at it and said it was fine and would either fix it self or die and fall out. The appointment costs a whopping 10 bucks.

During our break the upstairs neighbors and we split a sitter and went into town to an area called Itaewon. Itaewon is an area near one of the military bases just north of the river. When it was built I’m sure it was outside of town but now has been swallowed by a booming metropolis. The area has a ton of great shopping (read cheap) and a good selection of western style restaurants and bars. We found some cool wall hangings for the apartment as well as neat toy for Q. It even has shops that specialize in “plus” sizes, which in addition to large girthed can also mean tall. We had a really good burger and fries and cruised about the shops for a couple hours. Here are our friends Brian and Gisella.





We hopped a bus back to our area and took it a couple more stops than where we got on to see where it went. It dropped us off and we waited for a cab. It seemed that all the cabs were avoiding this area for some reason so we jumped back on a bus and rode it a bit further. We got off up the road a bit and tried again but were unsuccessful in finding a cab. We could see our apartment off in the distance so we just decided to hoof it. It was actually not that bad of a walk. It probably took between 20-30 minutes.

This past Saturday Q went to his friend’s B-day party. The party was actually for his friend’s older sister but he didn’t mind. He got the B-day girl a sweet bubble gun that shot bubbles and flashed bright colors. It was a big hit.

Yesterday we bought Julia a bike at our neighborhood shop. It is a sweet Raleigh. Now we can ride to work if we want, get the groceries, ride up to visit friends, or just tool around and enjoy the nice weather. I’ll get some pics of J riding her new bike up soon.


I think some bungee jumping might be in the near future stay tuned.

Party Time

Well this Saturday we had a school social that was co-sponsored by another international school here in Seoul. It was at a groovy bar called "New York Bar". It had cool features like a huge fish tank in the ceiling and a bird cage surrounded by a fish tank.

When it comes to going out we have been switching babysitting duties. One weekend Julia goes out and one weekend I go out. It works out well unless we want to hang out together. We have had numerous offers from other teachers willing to babysit but the only problem is that they all go to the socials as well. So this weekend we took the plunge and hired a service. The school researched a couple places and passed on their numbers to us. I called up and talked to a gentleman who spoke great English about the ins and outs of his service. He was very accommodating and informative and was able to schedule a sitter to arrive at our house at 5:30. We were not leaving until at least 7 but we thought it would be a good idea for all of use to hang out and get to know each other. Especially Quinn. I wouldn't want him waking up only to find a complete stranger in the house.

He seemed to like her right off the bat. She seemed to have that natural ability with kids and I think that put him at ease as well. He also like the fact that she paid complete and total attention to only him. It was nice because we were able to get some stuff done and get ready while she kept Q occupied. We told her we would be back by 11 and headed out.

It was great to get to go out together and hang out with our new friends and colleagues. We arrived at the NYB after wandering the block for a couple minutes feeling lost. One of the first people we ran into was our principal who was carrying around a bottle of tequila. A great way to start a party! It was great to be out and enjoying time with our new friends together. We stayed until about 10:15 at which time we hopped back on the subway and headed home. We arrived at our door at almost exactly 11:00. Not bad.

The sitter said that Q slept well. She seemed happy, we were happy, Q was happy.

The next morning I went for a bike ride in search of some trails in my area. After searching and climbing for a little over an hour I actually found some trails. As it turns out I climbed around the backside of the mountain and came up on the mountain top from the opposite direction of the trails. I chatted for a bit with a nice Korean man who spoke good English about the trail network. I got a general understanding of what went where. I took pictures of the trail signs so I can translate them and find out where they lead. I had a great ride down, down, down and was popped out not 2 miles from our apartment. Now that I know where to access the trail system I will definitely be exploring it in the upcoming months.

Today I was able to ride the fixie to work. It took about 30 minutes to get there and 20 to get back. As always it was a pleasant way to begin and end the workday. The kicker is climbing the hill to the school. The school is built on the side of a hill and it is a pretty steep climb up.

We had a great outing to Yuldong park. We hung out on the grass and watched the bungee jumpers leap off and bounce around. We decided that we need to get together a "Park Pack" that is stocked with all the essentials needed for a successful outing. There are a ton of cool parks in the city to take advantage of. Of course I forgot to bring my camera. Julia reminded me...on the subway...a little late. Next time.

4 days to vacation!!