Day 4 - Julie's trip to Incheon

My sister Julie has had an amazing trip.  Not only has she been there to watch us adopt our boy, but she's been able to experience the country she was born in.  Julie was abandoned here by her birth parents.  She does not know who they are or her name at birth or birthday.  She does know that she was abandoned at a market in Busan and then transfered to an orphanage in Incheon called "Star of the Sea".  She was eventually adopted by my parents through Holt, the same agency we are adopting from.  She was 3 when she was adopted and has no memory of Korea.

Julie got the opportunity to visit the "Star of the Sea" orphanage on Thursday.  She bravely navigated the subway and bus system by herself to her destination.  What she found was a large complex where children of all ages lived.  Not only does it house orphans but kids with parents that cannot support them.  She was shown around the complex and even saw the room where she would have lived.  They opened up her file and showed her the information they had on her.  Unfortunately there wasn't much there she didn't already know.  There was no information about her birth or birth parents.  She did get to see an old picture of herself that she had never seen before and she found out that she was left abandoned with a note.  Unfortunately, the note was not kept and no one knew what it read.  They were very sweet and apologized for not having more information on her.  But Julie was just grateful for being there and seeing another piece of her past.

Here are some pictures of the orphanage:

Day 5 - More Sam time

It's amazing how life has changed now that we have Sam.  At the beginning of this vacation it was all about seeing the sights of Korea.  Now the only sight of Korea we care about is our little toddler.  Just sitting and watching him nap is a thrill.  Every laugh, every smile just makes our day no matter where we are.  We did however decide that we needed some family pictures in front of some Korean monuments.  So we spent some more time back at Gyeonbokgung Palace chasing Sam around and harassing the guards.

Enjoy some of our pictures from today.

Day 4 - Dunkin Donuts

While Sam naps I'm going to try and get this posted real quick.  We are having so much fun getting to know Sam.  He is so smart, inquisitive, happy, and energetic.  He seems to really capture the hearts of everyone he meets.  He likes to wave at people, bows, plays hard, and runs whenever he gets the chance.  I can't believe how smart he is and how he is teaching us things.  When we come into our room after being out he immediately takes off his shoes and if you don't do the same, he will let you know you have to take them off.  He isn't potty trained but I can see it won't take him long to be.  He's let us know a couple times that he needs to be changed or has to go (we're still learning his signals). One time he went and found a diaper and handed it to us.

He is adjusting really well.  Better than I thought he would.  He did not fuss one bit after taking him from his foster family.  He took a little nap after we brought him home and then was a ball of energy after that.  We took him down to a playroom at the hotel complete with ball pit and he played and laughed his heart out.  He did great until bedtime.  He did not want to go to bed with us.  He screamed and hollered and pointed at the door.  He yelled for his foster parents.  This went on for about an hour before he cried himself to sleep.

He slept all night no problem and then next morning he was happy and playful all over again.  We took him down to breakfast and he ate really well - he'll try just about anything.  This turned into a bit of a problem though as he threw it all up on kristi's lap!

Later we took a walk around the neighborhood with Sam.  He likes to watch the cars and likes to point at things and say "muoy ya?", which is basically "what is this?" in korean.  We stopped at a Dunkin Donuts and his eyes lit up.  I think he has been to one before because he was grabbing for the trays and tongs before we even realized you had to serve yourself.

Afterwards we walked on and visited Gwanghwamun square where there are monuments to commemorate King Sejong who invented the Korean written language and Admiral Yi Sunshin.  Sam loved to run down the grassy areas between monuments.  I concur with his foster dad that he's going to be a soccer player.  He loves to run.  If you are carrying him and then set him down, a lot of times he takes off.  You really have to be quick to catch him!

Well nap is almost over, got to go!

Day 3 - Gotcha!!

Just another boring day.  Nothing really interesting happened.  Oh, except now we are parents!!

Today at 3pm we went to Holt to meet our son.  We took a taxi from our hotel and got there right at 3.  Sam and his foster family were already there waiting for us.  In we went and there's our son!  We spent about an hour getting to know Sam and his foster parents.  We were very impressed with his foster family.  They obviously cared a great deal for him and treated him as their own.  They also talked about how much of a gift he was for them.  He brought so much joy to them and made them better people.  The foster dad said that he even quit smoking.  Sam was cautious with us at first.  He was mostly interested in the toys in the room, but eventually started interacting with us.

We had a list of questions for the foster family and we also exchanged gifts.  We gave dad an OSU hat and also one for their college age son.  They also got some hazel nuts from a place close to Corvallis and a photo album with more pictures of us.  Foster dad was excited to see the pictures of us fishing with Chuck as he likes to fish and has already taken Sam out fishing.  We also gave them a photo book of Oregon.  I wrote a message in Hangul for them on the inside cover.  I told them how beautiful Oregon was and how Sam will get to see a lot of the places in the book.  We were incredibly blessed to receive a bunch of things from them as well.  We got three different photo albums from them including more baby pictures and pictures of him at his 1st birthday in his hanbok.  
They said that they had more that they would send us later too.  They also gave us the same hanbok he had on in his pictures.  They also gave us some of Sam's favorite toys including some that we sent him in previous care packages.

Things went so quick.  We took Sam downstairs for a quick medical checkup, got some pictures with the foster family and with DJ.  DJ is an incredible woman there at Holt.  She matches all the children to their adopting parents, handles all of the correspondences with Holt in Eugene, works with the foster families, and is there for all the gotcha days translating and setting adopting parents on their new course.  

Another incredible thing happened while we were there.  DJ asked Julie if she wanted to see her file.  Julie wasn't expecting or asking for any of this, but DJ got her on the phone with the orphanage she stayed at in Incheon.  She has arranged a visit there tomorrow!  No guarantees but this could open up a lot more information about Julie's past.  She is very excited. 

After this it was outside to the taxi.  We said our goodbyes to the foster family and were on our way to the hotel.  There was so much going on during the visit that there was no time for the moment to sink in.  In the taxi we had the first moments with Sam all to ourselves.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching Kristi holding Sam as he fell asleep in her arms.  We are parents now and feel incredibly blessed by the whole experience.  Enjoy the pictures.

Day 2.5 Dongdaemun, Bukchon

After touring Changdeokgung palace we explored more of Seoul.  We set out walking south to the Dongdaemun market place.  It turned out to be more walking than we thought, but it was fun to see all the little shops and sights and sounds along the way.  Along the way we strolled down the Cheong-gye -cheon which is a stream running through the city.  The weather couldn't be nicer for walking outside.  We had a little trouble finding Dongdaemun because we were expecting an outdoor market like Insadong.  Instead it was a huge multi floor building filled with shops.  The entire ground floor was nothing but fabric shops.  By this time our legs were about to fall off and we were a little overwhelmed by so many shops and so many people so we decided to catch the subway back to our hotel.

That evening we got a visit from our friend Dongkyun!  He is our friend Yoonsook's nephew who spent last school year studying at OSU and practicing his English.  He moved back to Korea this summer.  He took us out to dinner last night for traditional Korean food.  We had to remove our shoes at the front door and sat on the floor at our table.  The food was amazing,  I am not going to even explain what we ate.  I'll just let you look at the pictures.

After dinner we strolled through Bukchon which had a lot of neat traditional houses.

What a great way to celebrate our last evening and meal before getting Sam.  Thank you Dongkyun!

Day 2 - Changdeokgung Palace

Tuesday we went to the other famous Palace in Seoul - Changdeokgung Palace.  This was originally built in 1405 as a secondary palace to Gyeonbokgung, but later served as the main palace and residence for many kings.  There is actually more to see here, with the finale being a beautiful secluded garden behind the palace.