Gavin is taking Tae Kwon Do now

About two weeks ago I signed Gavin up for TKD. He had taken TKD classes back in the states but is was a special program for little kids. Several of his friends attend classes at this school so when he asked to be signed up I did.


His instructor is Master Song. He is a great guy and he is just wonderful with little kids. He also has access to Camp George because he teaches a class on Camp Walker as well. For his 3:00 class he comes to the school and picks the kids up and they all walk to the school together. Gavin takes the 4:30 class though.

This is the assistant. I am not sure what his name is. Since Gavin is new to the class he spends a lot of time one on one with him going over various moves etc. Gavin's previous TKD experience has paid off and I think some of it is just review for him.


Even though Master Song is a great teacher and a lot of fun he is still very strict and expects the kids to listen and show respect. Here he is threatening Zach with his stick. This was the first and only time I have seen this. I have yet to see him use it but I have heard he has a few times.


Here is Gavin with his Nunchucks. He cannot believe he gets to have a weapon and learn how to use it! Friday is Nunchucks day. His are smaller and padded but I think would still hurt if he hit someone with it.
Here is our upstairs neighbor, Song. She is also Zach's mom. She was keeping Abby occupied during Gavin's class. Abby loves everyone and really likes our neighbor a lot.

Thank You Chicken

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Mmmmmm. This little chicken place is right outside the back gate to Camp George. I have been wanting to stop in because I have heard it is pretty good. So Wednesday I did.

The kids were wild so we waited outside while our order was being made. For 10,000 won I got 20 pieces of Chicken. I chose half to be regular and the other half to be spicy.

I got home with two boxes of chicken, some fruit (?) stuff and a Pepsi.

This is the plain chicken and it is pretty plain. Court ate this box.

This was the spicy box. Ohhh sooo gooood. The sauce was like a really spicy bar-b-que sauce that was also a bit sweet. They are also rolled in sesame seeds. It was very spicy but very good.

We also stopped at the small store right outside the gate. They sell a little bit of everything. We go ice cream. The kids picked these cones out. Court and I shared a ice-cream waffle sandwich that was very good.

The school was evacuated Thursday!

I was not going do a post on this because of OPSEC. I always try to be careful because we are a military family living on a military installation. However, since it was in the paper I feel like I can post a bit about it. Sorry no pictures for you about this..not sure if that would be ok or not.

Gavin went off to school as usual on Thursday then came back around 7:55 crying because he fell down the stairs. That seems to happen a lot around here. He had banged his shin up so I iced it and gave him motrin. I got the girls and myself ready and headed out the door to take him back to school. I heard a lot of noise...kids talking and then noticed they had pulled all the kids out of the school. I figured it was just a drill so we went downstairs and found his class. His teacher said I could not leave him without signing into the office and I could not do that right then. Which I knew anyway so I let him sit with his class and we waited and waited. Eventually his teacher told me I might as well take him home because they were going to bus the kids to Camp Walker and it would be five hours before they could return to school. So I took the kids and went upstairs to tell Dee, Sheila and Crystal they might want to get their kids and called Tanya to tell her the same. Then...Nosy me grabbed my camera and went back downstairs and walked around and snapped pictures.

They had the gate to post closed and Sheila told me later they were not letting anyone on or off post. She was trying to go for a walk and was stopped. It was a little eerie. I have not worried about my safety here until this very moment. Anyway you can read the article I copied and pasted from the newspaper below. This came from Stars and Stripes

Taegu American school sports, clubs put on hold following bomb threat Activities called off until perpetrator is identified
By Franklin Fisher and Dave Ornauer, Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, Saturday, March 11, 2006
PYEONGTAEK, South Korea Taegu American School called off all sports and other extracurricular activities until the person behind Thursdays false bomb threat is identified, according to principal Helen Bailey.
Officials evacuated the school about 8:15 a.m. Monday. The school kindergarten through 12th grade is on the Army's Camp George in Daegu.
The cancellation was expected to affect the school's robust athletics program, most immediately soccer. Taegu American School's soccer season openers were called off. The boys and girls teams were to host Seoul Foreign on Friday and Seoul American on Saturday in Taegu's Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference openers.
The Army's Criminal Investigaton Command commonly called CID said a written bomb threat was found in the girls bathroom on the first floor, which houses the elementary school, an Army spokesman said.
Because of the possibility an elementary youngster was involved, CID officials deemed a criminal investigation inappropriate, said spokesman Kevin Jackson, Area IV Support Activity, Daegu. CID will leave any investigation to school officials, he said.
"We've already informed our students that if they have any information leading to the identification of the person who threatened the school, they should alert an administrator," Bailey said Thursday evening.
Military police combed the school building and grounds with working dogs trained to detect explosives. They declared the school safe several hours later, Jackson said.
Students were bused from Camp George to two nearby U.S. Army installations, where they were supervised and fed, he said.
Kindergartners through sixth-graders were bused to Camp Walker's Kelly Fitness Center; seventh- through 12th-graders went to Camp Henry's post theater.
Jackson said students returned to the school about 12:30 p.m.
At the beginning of the current school year, about 650 students were enrolled in Taegu American, Bailey wrote in a message in the school's Web site, www.taegu_un.pac.dodea.edu.
Bailey said, "We take this very seriously. It's not cost-effective for the military police and the working dogs and the rescue unit to take time out of their schedules to investigate a false bomb threat."
The shutdown of all extracurricular activities extended to practices for all sports as well as games, girls and boys soccer coaches Ed Thompson and Larry Knierem told Stars and Stripes on Thursday. "They'd phoned the schools and told us that we'd not be playing," Knierem said. "The kids have been working hard. It's a shame to see them punished for something they didn't do. But if that's the administration's call, then we'll support them. "
No make-up dates were announced Thursday for the postponed matches. Taegu American athletics director Michelle Chandler and Seoul American athletics director Donald Hedgpath said rescheduling would be difficult.
In a phone interview Thursday evening, Chandler said, "There's nowhere in the schedule for these games to be played."
Said Hedgpath by cell phone from Seoul, "There isn't much room in the schedule to make it up and that's pretty far to travel for one match. It's going to be really tight to get it in. It's unfortunate that this would happen."

Daegu Tour Part III

Daegu National Museum

This was the last stop on our little tour. I did not mention that we were supposed to go to some other places but so many of us have kids in school and needed to be back no later than 2:20 to pick them up. Friday it was just beautiful out. Very warm and sunny. It was a good day to be outside!


Here is a picture of the outside of the museum. And here is a little tid-bit about it:

Opened in 1994, the Daegu National Museum is composed of three exhibition halls and one event hall. The museum exhibits about 1,300 historical relics collected in the Yeongnam region. Folklore Hall exhibits replicas of traditional houses and other artifacts of Yeongnam that helps visitors better understand the region’s architecture style, lifestyle, religion, etc.



Some shots of the inside. Thank goodness they had a ramp since I was no longer willing to do stairs at that point and I had Abby in her stroller.

These are some old swords. They had a lot of neat things to look at but the girls were pretty restless and not too interested in standing around so I could look. I took a lot of pictures but we could not use a flash and it was pretty dark in the museum so most did not turn out too great.



These are some old crowns. I really liked the folklore hall the best. I think the girls did too because they had little buildings with little people. I liked seeing how the different houses looked and the various clothing etc.

Back outside to enjoy the beautiful day and let the girls run about. These guys are playing some sort of traditional game which involves throwing sticks into a pot.

This is a really old Pagoda that is 1000 or so years old.


Abby always gets loads of attention and she loves it. She is so friendly! Here she is making friends with this lady. She offered her drink and by the time we left the lady was holding Abby.

That was the end of the tour. We got back on the bus and headed back to Camp George. I am hoping they will do another tour. I suggested a temple to Mrs. Webb so we will see. The bad thing about going with a tour is you have to stay with the tour. I would have like to walk around the medicine hall longer and look in the shops nearby and take pictures. The second place we went was ok but really did not interest me too much. I am glad I went though.