Taxi, please!!!

It's definitely been a crazy week! One of non-stop action and full of orientation sessions as we're getting to know the "ins and outs" of Seoul Foreign School! With approximately 35 new teachers, there are quite a few of us that are doing the very best we can to make sure we're somehow maintaining the information that is being thrown out at us, not to mention making sure we'll be ready for the start of school in a little over a week! But through some of the long, tedious (but necessary!) orientation gatherings that have taken up most of our days this week, I've found small joys in a couple interesting things....

First let me say that the staff, faculty, administrators, and facilities of SFS are incredible....they truly are out of this world! I can't believe that there is such compassion for each and every person here - people go out of their way to help one another, and the administrators treat every faculty member as equal. When I stepped into my Choir room late Monday night and again Wednesday afternoon, I truly was taken aback - what an amazing space! One of my fellow "newbie" teachers snapped this picture of me on our "all school tour" on Wednesday after I played a little something at the choir room's piano - too much fun!



Aside from amazing facilities and such, we have amazing equipment!! There is a recording dock in the choir room, as well as a separate room full of African drums and hand bells for added choral music "flair"! Plus, we were all given brand. new. MacBook Pros!!!!!!! Obviously the computers belong to the school, but now I have TWO MacBook Pros, since my personal computer is also a MB Pro :-) This was another photo someone snapped of me upon the distribution of our new computers (a little frighting...I have to admit...)



But the real clicker was TODAY...this afternoon...when I (not intentionally) took my first cab ride in Seoul!!!! I was TERRIFIED!! But, after talking all week about the "Friday COSTCO Trip", where fellow new teachers were looking forward to buying plenty of household items and foods to stock up on for a while, I misread the time we were all planning to meet and found myself running around like a crazy person wondering if I should still try and make it out to COSTCO or not! And so, like any other daring person, I decided "What do I have to lose? Why not try and catch a cab with a cab driver who speaks no english, listens to obnoxious Korean radio talk shows, and kindly turns on the AC when he sees you're sweating from running around like a crazy American?" and so that's exactly what I did. I got in the cab and I immediately said "COSTCO, ga-seh-yo" which simply means "COSTCO, please" - and for what seemed like a 30 minute cab drive (when actually it was more like 20 in the rush hour traffic), I only payed the equivalent of $9 U.S. dollars! Nine dollars!!! For a 20 minute cab ride????? INSAINE!!! I almost thought I was going to have my heart pop out of my chest I was so nervous the driver wouldn't bring me to the right COSTCO - I saw him enter the address (in Korean Hangul characters, of course) and prayed it was the same one my foreign teachers friends would all be at! I was nervous when we went south of the Han River (SFS is NW of the Han River, which divides Seoul into North Seoul and South Seoul....not to be confused with North Korea and South Korea...ha!) but all the way, despite my nerves, I couldn't help but think I was on a great Korean adventure in my little yellow cab!!!

Nevertheless, I made it safely and soundly to COSTCO (the right COSTCO, of course...thank heavens!) and when some of my fellow teacher friends asked where I'd been, I smirkingly told them the story of how I'd hailed "Taxi, please!"...;-)