Yeah, it's definitely way more stressful moving my dog, than moving me. Surprisingly, getting them into the States is easy; it's the other way that can be difficult. When I was preparimg to come to Mongolia, I had every intention of bringing the dog, but was told he'd have to stay in quarantine for a week if I went through Beijing, and Korean Air (going through Seoul) would fly him to Seoul, but not on to Ulaanbaatar. It was such a headache, I ended up leaving him home for a year, while I figured it out.

Hiring a pet transport for an entire trip is expensive--they wanted $8000 to deal with my dog from JFK to UB. What I have now worked out is that I willl hire someone to help me deal with the Seoul-UB part of the trip, figure out the paper work I need, etc., but I'll handle everything else. That willl only cost about $400 and is well worth having my much loved dog with me!

El-Alsson is a good middle-tier school. A very good friend of mine is the secondary head there; great guy who would be easy to work for. It's not really an international school, but the kids are good and discipline maaintained, which is important, if you've ever taught in a school in the ME! The package is decent, I believe. School's in a nice setting, too.