Royalty, Riches and Regular Folks

Royalty

Today was a big day of sight seeing for us. We started with the Changdeokgung Palace, which is smaller than the palace we saw last time, but is famed for its secret garden.

This is Teresa outside the main entrance to the palace.

The black sign with gold letters is the doorway to the king and queens bedroom. Hmmm, I think perhaps we should do some more elaborate decorating for our bedroom when we get home.

The Korean Palaces of the Joseon Dynasty have many buildings with this distinctive architecture.

I am most fascinated by the elaborate painting under the eaves of every building.

I am standing in front of a pond in the Secret Garden. The gardens, were pretty brown this time of year, but we could imagine that they would be quite spectacular in full bloom.

This gate is the entrance to the King's library. I liked how the old tree had woven its way right into the architecture.

Riches

After leaving the Palace we hustled through busy Seoul City traffic and train stations to make it to the Theater on time.

At the Nanta Theater we watched a performance of Cookin', which is one of the most popular shows in Korea right now. It is a fusion of Blue Man Group meets Top Chef. It was a very good show that blended the traditional Korean percussion styles into a modern theatrical production.

After the theater we went to a fancy restaurant at the top of the Jongo Tower called Top Cloud. The views were fantastic and the food was wonderful. It was nice to savor one of our last grown-up meals together before we are a full-time family of four.

As you can see from this photo of the Bosingak Bell Pavillion that Seoul is truly a city where the ancient is fused with the modern.

Regular Folks

Most of this trip we have made a point of trying new things that we did not do on our previous trip to Korea, but one of the places we had visit again was the Namdaemun street market. Here dark alley-ways come alive at night with an eclectic array of street vendors, impromptu restaurants and shops. You could buy anything from socks and shoes to squid and ginseng.















The restaurants set up with plastic tables and beach umbrellas on the street;the menu is on full display. It was fascinating for us to see very well dressed people sitting having dinner in these little plastic tents.

While the views from Top Cloud were nice and the menu selections in Namdaemun were "interesting", I think a good old Korean McDonald's is more my style.

Josiah - Mommy and Daddy miss you very much and we are coming home with Naomi very soon. We had some french fries for you while we were at McDonald's. Give Grandma and Grandpa hugs and kisses for us.

After such a full day on Saturday, we are going to take it pretty easy on Sunday and then Monday we get Naomi!!! Only one more day to go...

Visit to Ilsan

We support a special needs child in Korea through Bethany Christian Services and Holt International. Since we were in Korea for our adoption we decided to see if we could visit our sponsored child, something that most people never get the chance to do. While we were making arrangements for our visit we sadly learned that the little guy we had been sponsoring had recently died. The agency was very embarassed that we had not yet learned of his death, but we told them that we understood and that we wanted to continue supporting a child in their program.

We travelled north of Seoul to Ilsan Village, where Holt runs a home for special needs children. Ilsan Village was founded in the 1950's by Harry and Bertha Holt, they were some of the pioneers of international adoption, spurred into action by the many homeless children from the Korean war.

There are currently 260 residents from age 1 to adult living at Ilsan. The residents are grouped into family units with two house mothers that rotate shifts to provide 24 hour care for the residents. It was neat to see the children helping each other as different children were able to do different things.

At Ilsan the children are able to get the therapy that they need. Holt also runs a special needs school attended by Ilsan residents and children who are able to live at home with their parents. As the children grow up at Ilsan they are able to stay or move out as their abilities allow and Holt provides on-sight work programs where Ilsan residents can work and earn money.

It was definitely inspiring to see all that Holt is doing for the children at llsan village and also to see what the children are able to accomplish. We sometimes forget that children with disabilites are people who can learn and grow and make a contribution to the world. One of the highlights of our day at Ilsan was having lunch in the home of Molly Holt, daughter of the founders of Holt. Molly is now in her 70's but she is still a tireless child advocate. Her house is used as the intensive care unit for children who are having problems in their family units at Ilsan. It was interesting to chat with her about parenting and discipline, she has all the same issue at her house as we do at ours :-)

The residents of Holt's Ilsan village are eligible for adoption and each year up to half of the new residents are adopted. But there are still many children needing a Sponsor. You can follow the link behind the word Sponsor if you wish to sponsor a child or even consider a one-time donation. It has been a blessing for us to see all the good work that our money supports and we can confirm first-hand that this organization is making a real impact on the lives of countless children who would otherwise be forgotten and neglected.

Take a look at our slide show of photo's from Holt's Ilsan Village:

Follow us in the Air

Here is our itinerary for anyone that wants to follow our flights online: http://flightaware.com/

Tuesday, March 4
Flight: Delta 621
Departs: 7:15 am from Louisville, Kentucky
Arrives: 8:34 am at Atlanta, Georgia
Flight: Delta 91
Departs: 10:50 am from Atlanta, Georgia
Arrives: 4:25 pm at Seoul, South Korea

Tuesday, March 11
Flight: Delta 92
Departs: 5:25 pm from Seoul, South Korea
Arrives: 6:05 pm at Atlanta, Georgia
Flight: Delta 1030
Departs: 7:32 pm from Atlanta, Georgia
Arrives: 8:52 pm at Louisville, Kentucky

Sneak Peek

So, if you are interested in seeing what it might look like when we get Naomi, here is a video of another family getting their little girl from the same agency we are using. WARNING: tissues required for viewing.
http://www.lifeasalewis.blogspot.com/
Find the post titled "Getting SaRang Video"

What's in a Name?

Since we have had the fun and difficult job of coming up with a name for our new daughter, I thought it would be fun to explain the importance of naming in Korea.

In Korea a name is usually made up of 3 characters. Each character is pronounced as a single syllable. The family name is placed first followed by the given name made up of 2 characters, one of which is chosen by the clan and used by all members of the same generation. This is the generation marker and changes from one generation to the next. Some families give generational markers to female offspring, but most do not since females are not usually recorded in the family chokpo (the genealogical table that traces one's lineage).

There is a great variety of given names, but only about 274 last names in current use. Forty- four of the last names account for less than 100 persons each. Each character of a Korean name has a certain meaning. According to tradition a child's fate is influenced by the name it is given so it is not uncommon for the parent, or the paternal grandfather who is usually given the honor of naming the child, to consult a professional name maker. (Notes on Things Korean, Han 1995)

Here are the meanings of our children's names:

Josiah TaeHyung

Josiah = sustained by God, Tae = great, Hyung = goes well

Naomi YooJin

Naomi = beautiful woman, Yoo = mild, Jin = true

We got a very nice surprise today - several new pictures of Naomi. Hope you enjoy them as much as we are.