As I said in my update, big week with Sharon and Annelise visiting. First rule of sales is be on time – I violated that rule as I was an hour late to pick Sharon and Annelise up at the airport (I allotted 2 hrs for 50 miles and it took 3 hours and 90 miles with traffic/avoiding traffic) and fortunately Sharon had activated her international cell service so we could connect. One of those days where to have to squeeze 4 hours of work/chores into 10 hours yet somehow don’t have enough time. Second rule is don’t oversell something you can’t control – I had told the girls how great Cheonho was (my neighborhood) and that so far I haven’t had any issues with homeless people or people harassing me. Of course, on Sunday morning Cheonho (after a big Saturday night) was a little trashy and while we were walking a guy comes out of nowhere and then falls down in front of us begging for help. Ended up he was still working off a long Saturday night so we got him some food and although he really wanted more Malakki – he seemed OK after a bit.
The rest of Sunday we toured Seoul and hit the highlights and visited one area of town that has a potential place to live in Jamsil and finished the day off with a Korean BBQ with 3 other families.
Monday the ladies explored my neighborhood more and in the afternoon we did a hike on the outskirts of town at Bukhansan National Park. It was good for me to be able to explore and find activities for later – they have downhill mtb there.
Tuesday and Wednesday was spent visiting schools and looking at apartments in Itaewon (expat area of time) while seeing some of the local sites. Annelise was great in approaching with an open mind and was intrigued with discussions of volleyball tournaments in Manila, model UN club having debates in China, and senior trip to Thailand. Both schools we visited were great and if Annelise doesn’t pick a certain one, there will be a very sad volleyball coach . The apartments were great too – but can’t finalize until we are 100% certain so they were just examples at this point.
Thursday was a formal tour sponsored by Samsung – Sharon and Annelise went and were able to go to traditional dress shops and jewelry shopping – it was too bad that I was working and missed it.
Friday we drove over to the schools and potential apartment locations to get a feel for driving around and how long went to the primary palace in the city, the central park of Seoul and observation tower, and finished the day off with some co-workers at a Korean BBQ. It was a good trip and next step is to figure out if they are moving over – somehow we have a lot of complicating factors but we’ll figure it out.
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