On our way home!

(From Husband Hank):

In a very brief email before leaving Hong Kong at 6:15 pm (arriving Newark 4:30 pm Thursday, Aug 13) , Sally reports that she plans to spend all day in bed Friday in attempt to compensate for the jet lag she will undoubtedly endure (she arrives here before she left China!). We have a wedding rehearsal to attend Friday night and the ceremony on Saturday; I hope she won't snore through the service. . .

As soon as she has caught up with her sleep and is able to, Sally will enter a more complete description of her exciting times in China; I'm sure they'll be intriguing! Stay tuned.

Excerpts from Shenzhen

Here are a few verbal snapshots, excerpted from an email from Sally at 11:07 EST, Tuesday, August 11:

Have had 2 great days in

Shenzhen. Shiyun's parents are adorable and they h

ave really bent over backwards to be generous and kind hosts to us. Last night's event was amazing - 5 new students and their parents came, and they are so excited,

and their parents were so relieved to meet Andy and me. One girl told me that we have "kind faces" and she never thought the head of her school would be nice.
One more day. The Zhengs are giving us the day to regroup, get work done and pack for the early morning we'll have on Thursday. Then we will meet them at 6pm to go to somewhere in the city, I think with the entire extended family. What a trip this is going to be; of course, Shiyun is the only one who speaks English. She also just got here herself about 4 days ago and still has some jetlag. She's been a trouper.

Had a wonderful event last night - 5 new students and their parents came, along with the Zhengs and the mother of one of our seniors (who is in Beijing right now). All our other current students happened to be traveling right now.

Today we went to brunch with Shiyun and her mother, then met most of the new girls and one of their mothers at a Chinese Cultural Folk Village - their version of Plimouth Plantation or the like. Very interesting, and we saw 2 great shows. The whole group had dinner at a beautiful Brazilian restaurant.

That's all I have energy for right now. Just wanted you to know what I'm up to a bit. I'm definitely ready to come home, but it's been great. Have to work hard on my blog when I get there!

(edited by Hank)

Made it to Mainland China

(from Sally's husband, Hank):

I had a brief phone call last night to tell me that Sally received her visa and that she and Andy were on their way to China. Will add more details as they come to me.

Not to worry- we made it to Hong Kong!

Since China has blocked blogspot posts, I am unable to add more detail about our travels since leaving Taiwan. However, I will try to update everyone soon by emailing my posts, which will then posted on the Coleman House Blog. Please be patient; I'll be in touch as soon as possible. In the meantime, be assured that we are fine, having evaded both a typhoon and an earthquake!

Backtracking to Seoul - Day Two (Tues., Aug 4th)

Just in case you're wondering why I'm starting with Day Two, look back a few entries. I did talk about our arrival in Seoul and our meeting with consultant Kyeong Kang and dinner in the hotel lobby bar.

We awoke the next day anticipating our first meeting with another consultant at 11am, but we had time to stroll over to the nearby Buddhist temple and take a look around. Though we were on our way to something quite old, we were struck by the newness of our immediate surroundings. We are staying in the "New Seoul," south of the river. "Old Seoul" is everything to the north, something we didn't get to see until our (originally) last day in Seoul. Note to the right the two lanes of crosswalk; there are arrows on either side indicating to walkers which lane to use so that people aren't crashing into each other as they lurch to the other side before the light changes. Not rocket science, but we in the U.S. don't seem to have figured this out yet...

Across the street and into the temple. What an oasis of beauty, simplicity and quiet in the midst of a big, noisy city! All we could hear were chants and bells in a variety of buildings, each of which seemed assigned to a particular kind of prayer. The outside spaces were garnered with rafts of white paper lanterns and traditional Korean statues and sculptures. Of course the highlight of the temple is the interior and exterior painting of the buildings themselves - intricate and colorful representation of Buddha's teachings and meaning. Here are a few highlights:



I was particularly struck by the contrast of temple roof lines against the backdrop of modern skyscrapers. Andy loved the chanting and is wanting to find a CD of it all to take home with her. Watch out; we might be found soon in her Bernardston backyard chanting ethereally, taking ourselves into another world of peace and contemplation. Not a bad idea at all!

Dream as we liked, we needed to get back to reality and a meeting at 11 with Christine Kim, another consultant. She brought with her a young 6th grader interested in SBS for a year from now, a delightful girl called Amy but named Moon Jung (and who was excited to hear that we had another Moon Jung already at school). Amy's mother was not feeling well and needed to head to the doctor's office so she stayed with us and Christine for a coffee in the lobby followed by a wonderful lunch. Christine treated us all to a Korean beef meal in a beautiful restaurant where we had our own room. It was our first introduction to Korean food, and we enjoyed it tremendously. We give Amy (as she insisted she liked to be called) a big thumbs up. Any 6th grader who could stay with adults and hold her own in the ways that she did gets a gold star.

The rest of the afternoon was spent catching up with ourselves a bit and doing a few errands in the underground mall attached to the hotel. We had to rest ourselves to get ready for another meal out, this time with our student Jane and her mother. We were really treated like queens, literally, as we were taken to an amazing restaurant of traditional Korean cuisine. As Jane and her mother explained, this is the food that was once served only to queens and kings of Korea. Now it is a special privilege to partake in such a meal. First of all, the ambiance...we were seated at a traditional table low to the floor where our legs were comfortably placed under the table into a "hole" in the floor. And then the food...wow. I have no idea how many courses were placed before us, but it was soon apparent that we could never eat everything set on the table. It was all for tasting, and "waste" is part of the ritual. My Yankee Self was quick to feel bad for whoever was in the back room doing dishes as everything was served to the table on separate plates for us to dip into as we cared to. Soon, however, my sense of guilt was left behind and I was as gluttonous as any king or queen of yore. Here are two of the yummy things we ate. The little pink circle below is actually a radish "taco" used to wrap little vegetables in and eat in one big bite. The preparation alone challenged my chopstick skills sufficiently, but the desire to taste this little delicacy was enough to quicken my proficiency in incremental ways!

Not only did we have one of the best and most interesting meals of our lives, but we also enjoyed entertaining company - including a delightful interpreter that Jane's mother brought along. She's a student at NYU and is tutoring Jane this summer in preparation for Biology next year. We had engaging conversation, lots of laughter, and good old girl fun in a lavish environment. It was particularly interesting to hear about the work of Jane's mother, a real entrepreneur who is very committed to an internet safety project. We are hoping to collaborate with her as a school in an effort to promote a more compatible and safe world.


All in all, what a treat - and something Andy and I will never forget. Here we are fully sated. Gansa Hamnida!

A thwarted trip to Taiwan

I’m writing this entry on what would have been our last morning in Seoul, but it looks like we will have at least one more day here. We got up today at 5am to catch the 5:50 bus to the airport for our flight to Taipei. Once there, we were told that our flight was postponed due to weather, and we would have to wait for further instruction. There were a number of people already sitting in what seemed to be the only available seats so we found a nice corner of the floor, got ourselves a Dunkin Donuts coffee and settled in for an indefinite period of time.

It wasn’t long before an airport official approached us. I thought he was going to chastise us for being on the floor, but he was just curious to know what we were waiting for and asked about our travel plans. When we told him, he confirmed that our flight was delayed and told us where some other chairs were that we were welcome to sit in. Ahhh; we got up and moved there; you may be glad to know that we were not sporting SBS garb while moving in nomad mode!

Not long afterwards, the same gentleman came by again to tell us that the flight had now been canceled; there is a typhoon moving into the Taipei area. He told us where to go to make ticket changes so we moved once again with all our luggage. At that counter we learned that it could be 2 days before we get out of Seoul and were given a number to call for up-to-date information about the flight. Andy and I were impressed by the humanitarian gestures made toward us and couldn’t imagine anyone taking such good care of foreigners at our own American airports. We are grateful for the Korean sense of hospitality. Gansa Hamnida!

We quickly found our way back to the bus counter and bought a ticket for the same bus we had taken a couple of hours before. However, this time we had a bus driver who LOVED Andy and kept asking her to teach him how to pronounce English phrases that he had written on old cardboard sheets (like what you find with shirts that have been laundered). Each time the bus stopped at a red light or in traffic, he would jump out of his seat, put another sheet in front of her, and ask for an English lesson. You have to admire the guy – trying to learn English while working hard. He was incredibly friendly and optimistic so I finally asked if I could take his picture. Of course, he said yes...


He understood what our situation was and even offered us cold water at one of the stops (which we gladly took; it’s hot today!). When we arrived at our hotel, our bus-driving student jumped out to get our bags but also asked another traveler if he’d take a photo of the three of us. Unfortunately, only the driver has that one, but who knows where Andy and I will show up someday!

So we returned to our hotel. True to Korean form, the staff was incredibly solicitous and offered us a room at an equal rate (which was reduced, thanks to one of Andy’s consultant friends here in Seoul) and for two nights. We can cancel if we need to tomorrow night. Nothing like coming home again! We quickly turned on the TV to get an update on the weather and look what greeted us on the screen. Nice touch that we hadn't noticed before; we never turned on our TV during the first round at this hotel.

So here we are, sitting in an internet café catching up and trying desperately to contact friends in Taiwan who are waiting for us. We are also waiting to learn if we have to cancel our reception tomorrow night or not. A lot to arrange! For those of you reading this in Taiwan, we will try to update you via this blog or the SBS Facebook page, OwlNet’s Student Announcements, and Mrs. Patt’s Facebook page.

I owe you an update on our several days in Seoul. Let me just start by saying that it has been a wonderful visit; it’s hard to imagine that we’ve gotten so much done and had such a wonderful time in such a relatively short period of time. Because this entry is so long, I’ll backtrack in the next entry and provide some info on our great stay here in this beautiful city.

Photos I owe you from Hakone

I've had so much trouble with the internet while in Seoul; this fancy hotel is gouging us to provide internet service, and it's terrible! A frustrating part of travel sometimes. Anyway, I cannot seem to get into my old posts to edit them so I've decided to simply upload a bunch of picture that relate to the last 2 posts.
[Now, 5 hours later, I seem to be able to access the internet again. So...Here goes:]

Our trip to Hakone, Japan
Andy and I commented on the cleanliness of Japanese taxis with their "doily" upholstery covers and drivers always in white gloves:

Here's a picture of the front of the traditional restaurant we were originally going to. It looked incredibly charming:
But as you know, we went to the main part of the hotel where we had the French food. We clearly were having fun! Kyra still owes me pics of the inside of the dining room where we ate (hint, hint, Kyra!). She's been having computer problems too so it may be awhile before we see those.

Following our meal we worked it off by taking the hike up into the mountain to see some of the hot springs. Some views from that walk:



As you can see, it wasn't a picture perfect day, but we didn't care; we had a great time and were able to get a good sense of what it might all look like on a clear day. Once at the top, we turned around to go back down, this time mostly by cable car, partly by tram. Here's the cable car:
Here's what we were supposed to see (Mt. Fuji!), and ultimately did, thanks to a big poster in the tram building that provided this shot!




We spent a bit of time in the village shopping and trying some of the foods that were being offered.



Finally, on the train ride home, we enjoyed watching Kyra take pictures of her mother who was patiently posing for her. Again, a great day!