Today's activities...

We were so busy today.  We left the hotel fairly early afraid we wouldn't figure out how to get from the hotel to Holt using the subway.  We figured it out a lot quicker than we thought and made it there 1 1/2 hours early...ooops!  So, we asked if we could go to the Reception Center to hold the babies there.  She gave us directions and let us go.  We found it pretty easily too.  They were so sweet!  There were five in each room.  There were the ones that were about 5 months and up and the ones under in another room.  One little girl in the big baby room smiled and smiled.  There was a little guy with downs syndrome that really liked to move...kinda dancing.  I held a little boy that was just huge!  We moved to the little babies room and held them too.  Though there was one little one still in an isolate that was just days old.  She was very sweet.  One baby slept the whole time.  I picked up the little girl closest to me, who was about 4 months old.  I was going to put her down to pick up the little guy Lois had because she swore he wanted me and she got really mad.  As soon as I picked her back up she was fine.  She just melted into you and sat there.  We said goodbye to all the babies and the sweet workers in the rooms after almost an hour and walked back for our meeting with Chelsi's foster mother. 

Chelsi's foster mother was so happy to see her.  She told us the things she remembered about Chelsi.  Apparently Chelsi cried a lot.  I can't even imagine that.  She really doesn't cry that often now.  She remembered how chubby she was...that's very true!  She said recently she was the only girl she'd ever had in 6 years and 12 babies.  Chelsi's only the 2nd to come back to see her so far.  We gave her the gifts we put together and she gave us some things.  I got a little Korean fan and the girls got hair stuff....which Kaelin grabbed very quickly.  We also got some ginseng tea, so Brian will try that out.  We took lots of pictures and talked for awhile then headed out to catch the subway to SWS.  The foster mother did say she would try to email again.  She'd tried off of the email I put in some old letters, but she said it didn't work. 

We figured out way to SWS from Holt pretty quickly too.  We got a lot of stares on that long ride.  Couldn't tell what they were thinking though.  We found SWS.  Walking from the station to SWS was a little harder to find than Holt, but we did find it.  We were a little early there too.  The subways are very fast!  We gave our gifts to the director and also delivered a gift from another SWS family to the director for the birthmother and fostermother of a child.  We then got a taxi with our case worker and went to the foster mother's house.  She came to find us and we went up to their place.  We went in and took our shoes off to sit and play.  We had an hour.  First, we got to just play with Jaemin alone because the case worker was asking the foster mother questions about his habits so she can type it up for us.  Then we all just kind of talked a bit and exchanged gifts.  We got his hanbok, a Korean/English baby's first bible kind of book (so cute) and a huge photo album of pictures.  The foster mother said Jaemin knows what particular clothes they wear to go outside and gets so excited because he loves to go out.  He also loves the water and having his feet played with.  We ate ice cream later.  Jaemin has the sweetest laugh.  He thought Lois, Kaelin and Chelsi playing ball was hilarious.  He smiled a lot!  He didn't look for his foster mother as much as I thought he would, while I held him.  I truly expected him to cry when I picked him up, but not one bit.  He kissed me a lot.  That sweet open mouth baby kiss!  He held onto my shoulder and if I sat him a bit in front of me he turned and reached back.  Melt my heart!  I pray Thursday and Friday go as well when he leaves his foster mother behind completely.  BTW, he's HUGE!  He's a big, solid boy!  And he can crawl fast!  She says he's pulling up too, so we're going to be very busy.  Lois doesn't think the clothes I have will fit.  :)  It was hard to say goodbye, but we'll be back soon and have him for the night.  I'll post pictures of all of this at a later date when I decide which pictures are safest to post and Brian sees his pictures first.

Now, for the funniest part of the day.  When we were on our way back from the Reception Center to Holt agency, we had to cross the street.  The arrows were going down so we were running out of time.  I was carrying Chelsi and Lois was running across with Kaelin.  She had these heelish shoes on and apparently looked back for Chelsi and I and all I saw was her sailing to the ground and she took Kaelin with her.  Just short of the curb, but still in front of a car.  We grabbed the stuff they dropped and went on and Kaelin barely had a scrape on her leg, but Lois cut herself.  We've been laughing about it all day because when Lois fell all I could see was Kaelin flying to the ground and when she landed her arms and legs were spread out as she laid there on the ground.  It really was pretty funny, so we've been giving Lois a hard time the rest of the day.

Anyways, going for the night and no pics tonight.  Tomorrow all we have is to go to Eastern to meet Kaelin's foster mother.  We'll sight see a little more Thursday morning and then go get Jaemin at 4:00 pm.  Friday we should get to leave.

Can't wait to return with him.  Keep us in your prayers.

Lisa

Old and New

We went to exchange some more money today, so we had to wait for the bank to open to leave.  Our hotel has a free breakfast and it was REALLY good!  There's so much food to pick from that none of us had a problem finding enough to eat.  We hailed our first taxi and went to Seoul Station to see Lotte Mart....not what I thought it was.  It's more of a Walmart, but the girls found a couple of things anyways.  Then there's the Galleria.  Really nice stuff...but pretty much American.  We at lunch at Seoul Station too...yep, I let the girls eat ice cream at Baskin Robbins for lunch.  We then took a taxi to Namdaemun Market.  It's so big...overwhelmingly big.  There are people in open air selling things as well as some stores in buildings.  We were there for at least 2 hours and didn't even scratch the surface of that place.  I hope to go back because I never did get the picture of South Gate like I'd wanted, but I finally found it on the map this morning.  It's fairly difficult to tell drivers where you want to go, so for the most part I brought sticky notes and we've written each place down on a sticky note and the hotel wrote it in Korean for us.  But, yesterday I lost the one returning us to the hotel.  :)  Luckily, I found a couple of things in my backpack that helped the driver find our way back.  Lois had to tell him we were there though.  I think he was a little frazzled.

The roads in Seoul are crazy!  They drive extremely close to one another.  As in so close, sometimes they have to take turns moving or they'll take a side view mirror off.  They don't mind just whipping over into a parking spot on the street to let you out either.  Even if it means majorly cutting someone off.  I've also never seen so many buses in my life.  There is no lack of public transportation here.  Lois and I noticed that people REALLY dress nice for work here.  Beautiful silk suits on men and very few men have dress clothes on without it being a suit.  Women wear heals with everything...even jean shorts.  And you cannot get Korean food until 5 or later and walking in at 5 kind of seems to disturb them.  Door are open to places, but you can't come in and they definitely make sure you know it.  But, we ate Korean, regardless last night and it was very good!  The bulgogi was the same as at our local restaurant except we found out we had to cook it ourselves.  The side dishes were a WHOLE lot hotter than in the US at restaurants.  Kaelin thoroughly enjoyed everything though and I even got Chelsi to taste the bulgogi for a twizzler.  :)

At the market we did manage to find Chase the pair of socks he wanted...Cole now has some too.  The girls got their new hanboks and they're very gorgeous!  I did have to bargain for those.  They were way out of my price range since I was buying two.  I got her to come down 20,000 won though and was happy.  Kaelin got a fan she'd been looking for and a Korean rag for each girl.  They each got little purses too.  We got Jaemin a Reds rag and shirt.  The man put it on Chelsi right away though.  I don't think he understood when I kept telling him we were looking for one for a boy.  Let me tell you, looking for the Reds (soccer team) rag and shirt was difficult.  I finally found a shirt and showed them the girls' rags and finally found someone who understood what I was trying to say.  I was happy!  We got a set of Wedding Ducks for each of the kids too.

If I get to go South Gate I'll go back to the market and look around that side as well.  It's 10 acres (consisting of different levels).  I don't think you could ever see it all.  And the people?  Oh my gosh it's crowded and they do feel free to run you over.  :)

After the market we went to the Korean Folk Village.  There wasn't really anyone there, but it was still cook to check out.  No reenactments which would have been awesome!  It was neat to see the games from earlier in time as well as the old house and quarters where royalty stayed.

Here are pictures from yesterday and today we are taking the subway (wish us luck) for the first time and going to Holt to visit Chelsi's foster mother.  Then we go to SWS to get a ride to Jaemin's foster mother's home and see my baby for about an hour.  I'm still vigorously working out details to see Kaelin's foster mother at ESWS.  I pray that works out.  That would be the topping for Kaelin on this trip!

Lunch!



Folk Village

































View of Seoul Tower from Folk Village





Heat for the ondol floors of the house.



Getting ready to find a taxi to go back for the day.



And, we're back from our trip.  Since Chelsi was sleeping on Lois while Kaelin and I bought the hanboks I had them try them on at the hotel.  Aren't they gorgeous!?

Don't forget

My posts are still on US time, so while it says the first post was 5/24, that was in the US.  It's 5/25 here.

Lisa

We're in Korea!

I know, I never said we'd even left yet.  It's been crazy.  We had a vague idea Thursday afternoon and by the time I left the kids' awards assembly Friday I had a voicemail from the agency saying we had travel clearance and could leave Saturday.  So at 3:30 am we left home and by 4:00 am the next day we were in Korea....of course in Korea it was that afternoon...late.  That really throws you off when you miss a day like that.

Anyways, I'll try to post here and there about our travel so far, but not exactly sure how that will turn out.  I just happen to be up at 2:00 am Korea time and couldn't sleep so I got my pictures off the camera and thought I might post a little.

The first flight was exactly on time and then we had about 3 ½ hours to get back through security before the next flight, which was way plenty time.  Then, Lois went on MANY walks through that area with the girls.  By then, it was 8 hours after we’d left home and they had done really well.  But, on the first flight Kae ended up with a window seat and she REALLY enjoyed getting to see the ground beneath us and slowly going away.  She was pretty amazed by that.  It was actually pretty funny on the way to the airport too.  The girls both fell asleep and had been asleep for quite sometime when we arrived.  They both woke up right as we were pulling in to park and Kaelin got so excited (she was woohooin' the whole time to park) to find out we were already there and Chelsi promptly told us she almost fell asleep.  ;)

The first little flight was just an hour long.  It was American and Kaelin thought it was great just because it was a new experience.  But, when we got on the Korean Air flight she really thought it was awesome.  They love eating on the airplane, picking out movies to watch and listening to their pick of Korean kids songs.  Chelsi ate a hamburger and some other kids stuff for lunch, but Kaelin and I had bibimbop.  Lois had the pasta.  She was too hungry to try something new at that time.  All the girls did was talk about how much they loved the airplane.  They obviously don't remember their crabbiness after they had been awake for almost 24 hours and FINALLY fell asleep the last few of the trip.  We barely woke Chelsi up enough to get off the plane and get through the airport.

Incheon International was very easy to navigate.  We were out of there in about 1/2 hour even with collecting our luggage, going through immigration and customs and exchanging our money.  I guess people felt sorry for us and people were asking us as we got close to the doors where we were going so they could help.  We knew which bus line, so that helped and Korean Air got us on their limo bus and we took the 85 minute ride to NEAR the hotel and walked another 2-3 blocks to the hotel.  with two kids, two large suitcases and 4 backpacks, we decided we were taking a taxi back to the airport.  I don't care....I'm not dragging poor Jaemin through that.  Chelsi unfortunately thought we were seeing him right away.  It was nice to be able to tell her this morning it's tomorrow now.

We're staying at the Fraser Place Central serviced residences.  It's very nice.  Our reservations didn't go through from the agent, so we were worried for a bit.  But, it was on my eticket so the guy at the front desk gave us a little bigger room for the same price (160,000 won)...about $127/night including two adult breakfasts.  Really cheap for Seoul.  The room is very large.  We have a separate bedroom with a queen and single.  Chelsi and I slept in the queen, Kaelin slept on the couch and Lois slept on the single.  We have tons of shelves and closets everywhere!  Tons of places to keep everything.  We even got two bathrooms.  The floors are hardwood and we really like that.  We have a kitchen, so we're grocery shopping for some things today...just some basics to avoid some meals if we don't have time to stop and eat somewhere.  We'll probably still eat out a lot because we all like Korean (except Chelsi) and I heard it's very inexpensive here in comparison to eating American here.

It's getting closer to breakfast time and then we'll pack what we need to venture out.  Today is just shopping, so we're hitting the markets.

Some pictures of our trip so far are below.  Please continue to pray for our safety while here and the safety of our loved ones still at home.  I'm SO glad we decided to have a friend come with instead of Brian and I bringing all 4 kids.  We were exhausted with the 4 of us.

The trip from Chicago to Korea.  We flew Korean air from Chicago to Incheon (outside of Seoul).  It was a great flight.  I mean as great as a 13 hour flight can be.  The food was good.  There were tvs in the seats, so the girls could watch whatever they want or listen to music or track the flight.  I, sort of, watched 3 movies on the way.  I don't think the girls really watched any, but they watched some Korean kid shows like Pororo.  They listened to some kids music and Chelsi got really loud when she heard the Three Bears song start.  She started singing along.  It was great!



















In Korea!!!









View from the room.