A walk in our hood

According to Erickson, part of our KIS Faculty Support Staff, our dong is not typical for the city of Seongnam. It is quiet and almost rural, tucked in around green, jungley hills. But right across the highway is a maze of high rise apartment buildings and busy city sidewalks full of stores and restaurants.

The other morning a group of kids came to our door looking for Haven and Finlay. Turns out they were some of the KIS teacher's kids who live in the neighborhood. Our kids said goodbye and headed out into the dong in search of the local playground. A bit later we hooked up with the kids and took a walk in our neighborhood. This time we headed toward the hills.

right down the street is a shop full of amazing rocks for bonzai

Haven and I walking like Koreans

We have a few little farms and gardens throughout the dong.

This little creek cuts through our dong.

These chilies are the prominent crop!

Day One in South Korea

This morning we woke up at 4AM feeling tired but motivated. After a few hours of organizing and unpacking we decided to take a look around our dong (neighborhood). We had heard from the KIS Faculty Support Staff that 6 other families live in the neighborhood and we weren't out walking more than 20 minutes when we spotted some "Western"-looking faces. We immediately began a conversation with what turned out to be the Whitehead family. They whisked us off on a walk to the KIS campus to show us around.

Later in the afternoon we brave the bus and subway systems with the Whitehead family to find a big grocery/home store to stock up on supplies. Tops on the list are FANS and a mop.

First Glimpses of Our New Home

We arrived to our new apartment, "Top Village" in Gugnae-dong around 10PM on July 26th. The crew from KIS quickly unloaded our mammoth bags into a pile right inside our door and sped off in the KIS bus to drop off the other new teachers arriving on the same plane we did.

 The bus ride took about 45 minutes from the airport. It was full of wonder as we saw our first glimpses of South Korea.





The apartment was HOT, sparse, and sticky. We were given a small sofa, coffee table, TV with stand, a kitchen table with four chairs, and bedroom furniture. The only thing filling up the space was the piles of our stuff EVERYWHERE!

Our first morning in Korea we all woke up about 4 in the morning ready to work. The first priority was to get the kids' bedrooms set up so they felt a connection to the place. As you can see we brought their bedding from home and plenty of toys!

Fin's new room has a desk, large window, dresser and bureau.

Haven's room is small but cute.

All of our work payed off. They LOVE their rooms.

We are off to Korea!

Six months in the making and the Curtiss family is setting off for a two year adventure teaching in South Korea. We will be living in Seongnam, a "Satellite City" of Seoul. Armed with 15 bags, each weighing 50 pounds, we say goodbye to our family and friends (with tearful eyes) and prepare for an 12 hour flight across the dateline.

 Sky Cap service was a blessing. He had to pull out the big guns in order to fit all of our bags.

 Riding the shuttle to the International Terminal at Sea Tac. We are through security. Whew!