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:

The First Big Day...many more to come

Today was our first full day in Korea and it has been full indeed.
After a night of broken sleep we got up early to visit Naomi for the first time. We waited nervously for our social worker to make the last minute arrangements, then we took a long cab ride to Naomi's foster mother's apartment. Then on the 15th floor of a high rise in South Central Seoul we met our daughter for the first time. She is beautiful and tiny (only 15 lbs). When we got Josiah he was a month younger, but he was about 35% heavier.

We got to visit and ask lots of questions for about an hour before Naomi had to go to sleep. We learned that she is a mild mannered baby when she is up, but she does have some problem sleeping. She is usually awake from midnight to 6am. After this trip around the world and some of Josiah's recent wake-up times, I think that we have decided that sleep is over-rated.

When Naomi started to get fussy, her foster mother would step in to try and calm her. This feels strange to have someone reach out to take your baby because she is fussing. It makes your natural parental instincts say, "Hey, I am her Dad, I can handle this." But we experienced the exact same feelings when we got to hold Josiah for the first time and he cried a lot more. Today we learned that we will get Naomi for good on Monday at 11am.

On our long cab ride back to the guest house we alternated between feelings of happiness and Oh My Goodness ... This is really happening. No matter how deliberate a decision to become a parent may be, I don't think you ever feel that you are fully ready.

After returning to the guest house, we made a trip out to Walmart to pick up a few things, like the cable that we needed to download pictures to the computer. Well, we never found Walmart, but we did enjoy shopping at E-mart. It was right next to the ubiquitous Starbucks.

We then ventured into Itaewon, the heart of Seoul's tourist district. We spent time browsing the unique shops. We bought some Masks from a 90 year old shop owner who didn't mind mugging for the camera. After an long afternoon of browsing and turning down offers to have a custom tailored suit made for us, we ate traditional Korean barbecue at Don Valley restaurant. During our train ride back, we got to experience the Asian version of personal space, as we jammed into packed subways.

Enjoy the pictures and leave a comment for us.
Tomorrow promises to be another Big Day.

We are Here!

Our journey started earlier than expected Tuesday morning when Josiah awoke with a wet bed at 2:30 am. Greg got him changed and layed a dry towel down on his bed and I lay in bed with him to try to get him to go back to sleep. 30 minutes later he was finally asleep and I went back to bed only to get up 45 minutes later to shower and get ready for the airport. We got to the airport in the recommended 2 hours before takeoff. Just as well because Atlanta airport was experiencing weather as they put it. We were scheduled to fly at 7:15am, but because we arrived with enough time we got on the 6am flight to Atlanta.
Flight out of Atlanta to Seoul was on time and not full. Greg and I had 3 seats for the 2 of us so we each got a little sleep. The flight was uneventful. We had personal little screens with free access to movies on demand and video games. I am now proficient in some games I will probably never play again.
We arived in Seoul at 4:30 pm local time and took the airport limosine bus to the Renassaince Hotel. From there we decided to walk to the guest house. I was supposed to be just a couple of blocks, but we got lost and had to ask for directions. We happened to find someone that spoke very fluent english who walked us to the guest house. Praise the Lord for Korean hospitality.
Tomorrow morning we are meeting our social worker, Mrs. Bang, at 9:30am to visit Naomi at her foster mother's house.
So we are here and I discovered that I left the cable that connects my camera to the computer at home, so no pictures until we buy a new one - sorry!
Josiah - Mommy and Daddy love and miss you. See you soon.

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

Last Big Hoorah as 3

Before we got our travel call we had planned a long weekend away with Josiah. The last big thing before Naomi comes home. Little did we know at the time that we would have to cut the weekend short. Instead of cancelling the whole weekend we left Saturday morning for Newport. We got there at lunch time and found a place to eat near the aquarium. Mr Chris, Miss Laura, Max and Madison were with us. After lunch we went to see the sharks at the Newport Aquarium. That was a ton of fun until the 3 kids got really tired. After leaving the aquarium we went to our hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming in the hotel pool. When we ask Josiah what his favorite part of the weekend was he says, "Being rowdy with Mr Chris and swimming. Oh, and the sharks were cool too!"
I didn't take too many pictures because our batteries died. This will not happen in Korea!

Josiah touching a shark

Mr Chris and Max touching a shark

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"