So today is the first day that i feel I've gotten a proper sense of the place we now call home. It has been pouring, and pretty nippy since about midday, and looking out to sea from the windows of the house it seems a little melancholy. Such a change from yesterday when the sky was a brilliant blue, and I took Leiko, the new addition to the family, for a run up Juengsuepo mountain. It was spectacular from the beacon at the top, with a birds eye view of both DSME and Samsung shipyards, as well as a superb vista of all the surrounding mountain peaks. To complete the scene we saw a magnificent mountain eagle hunting below us, taking advantage of the thermals to glide effortlessly. Leiko made good time all the way up, although her sense of smell gets her in a spot of bother occasionally. On the steep path down we only had one mishap, when she chose on way round a tree and i chose the other, needless to say we both screamed to a very abrupt halt. Its a shame that I'm not able to let her off the lead, but I can clearly see that she would be gone like a scone in 5 seconds, led astray by her nose! Jon and I were in hysterics last night, she was so knackered after that she couldn't even get up to eat supper!

Today however, we had no heady mountain expeditions, and instead I took River for a pizza slice with the children who are in the morning session of the Ladybirds class, Okpo International. At present he only has an afternoon session, which he seems to enjoy very much, but I feel that he will be very happy come September, when he will hopefully be going full time, like Ruby and Amber . The pizza was a good opportunity for him to be in a large group of his peers, which is something he hasn't done since October last year when we finished up in Kojonkietsuksa, Thailand. At first he was nervous, but he chilled out after his massive glass of O.J arrived, and all was well. He has only got one other child with him in the afternoon, and, as fate would have it, this little boy doesn't speak a word of English! River has undertaken to teach him, however, but until then its down to the international sign language of all little boys, bash , crash, cars!

Ruby is definitely still in a settling down phase, she seems to have the least enthusiasm for the whole school thing at the moment. I think she just needs to make a friend, she is a one on one kind of person, and really loves nothing more than a soul mate. I'm wishing for this too, of course, but we will just have to wait on it, and hold our thumbs.
Amber is , as usual, ever the optimist. For her it seems to be working out quite well at the moment. She is lucky as she likes school, and even the work part, which is all rather unusual in a ten year old. We shall see how long it lasts! At least they have a library, which is reasonably well stocked, so my concerns on how the feed her ferocious book habit have been somewhat quelled. She is bringing a friend , a girl named Lucy who , I believe, hails from New Zealand, home for a sleepover tomorrow. Popcorn, pizza and High School Musical are all on the cards!

On a happy note to end, it seems like Jon may have found me some 'kerosene'. I'm not convinced its exactly kerosene, but I shall give it a spin tomorrow eve, if it drys out a bit. I have been missing my fire poi!