Korea Day 1

HI Everyone!

We are having so much fun in Korea! We did a ton yesterday... we walked EVERYWHERE! This city is a bustling metropolis! Here is the view of Korea that we have from our hotel room... morning, afternoon and night!

We got up early (again I was up early today but I forced myself to go back to sleep) and headed to our breakfast buffett which was great! It is so nice to not have to pay for breakfast or think about where to get it. After breakfast we went to visit a friend that I have met through our online adoption community- she had just gotten her son the day before and is staying in the same hotel. It was so fun to meet Connie and her husband and new son! Her son is a mover and a shaker- he was ALL over Calen and Calen wasn't too sure about him. (I really hope that isn't a sign of what's to come with katiejoy...) After our little visit we headed to the lobby to wait for Allen's God Family. While in the lobby we ran into another Holt Family from my online adoption community! They just got their daughter 2 days before and she is SO cute... They were headed out on a walk so we made plans to meet up later. We got a phone call through the hotel at the moment and found out we had some more time to wait for Allen's family so we headed out to the courtyard to let Calen run around a bit. He had lots of fun and got out a lot of pent up energy from the long plane ride the day before.

Once we met up with Allen's family we headed out to the subway which is about a 5 minute walk from our hotel. Jeremy showed us how to use the subway and get a T-Money card which we can preload for the ease of life and use of the subway. I was so grateful he showed us how to use the subway! I'm a little nervous to be using the subway on our own tomorrow as Korea's transit system is quite complex! They have different lines of subways on different levels and many times we'll have to transfer lines at different stations... be praying that we can figure that out tomorrow morning! YIKES!

Since Jeremy's parents, Janet and Larry, had been in Korea for about 7 days already and had seen almost everything already, I asked Jeremy to take us shopping. I know, totally silly right? But I knew that if we tried to navigate our way to Korea's downtown shopping district we would never find our way out again... Just check this place out!

Calen acting silly in the Nike Store:

It was super interesting to be in the midst of all these stores. These stores were several stories tall and there was the length of an ally way between them. Most people walked through the ally ways, BUT several times I thought Calen might get run over by motorcyclists and CARS! Yep, they can drive down these ally ways too! To someone from America, this place looked like chaos! It was so funny to hear almost everyone speaking Korean yet almost ALL stores blasting American music! I noticed that many stores even had caucasion models in their pictures inside their stores. There were lots and LOTS of lingerie stores and lotion type stores... very interesting yet a ton of fun! We bought a few things to bring home and then it was time for lunch! Jeremy asked us if we wanted to eat Korean food and we told him sure... see, there is a TON of American food here, but it's all very expensive. Korean food is CHEAP! So Jeremy took us to a place that served chicken only... and spicy chicken at that! They cooked the chicken right on our table. I was very proud of myself because I actually ate the food and liked it! I'm not at all a lover of spicy foods or onions and this lunch had both of those words in it...even Allen was proud of me. Calen took one huge bite of the food and then decided that it was too hot, so he ate fruit snacks and granola bars instead. :-) 5 of us ate a LOT of food for about $3o- CHEAP! Of course, Allen's godparents wouldn't let us pay so we were treated to lunch which was so nice.

Jeremy, Janet and Larry


our food cooking at our table

After lunch we walked to a man made stream called Cheonggyecheon Stream. Jeremy told us that the President of Korea had this stream made because he is trying to beautify the city. It was really a cool place to go and hang out for a few minutes. We just sat on the side steps and talked for a while. We also people watched which was a lot of fun because there were a lot of people down at the stream that day! Jeremy had told us that yesterday was the first really nice day of the year in Korea. Calen hung out with Jeremy a lot... he adored him really! That was really fun to see the two of them together. Jeremy was GREAT with Calen. :-) Jeremy and his parents got us back to our transfer subway station and then we said our goodbyes. It was a bit of an adventure trying to find our way out of the subway station, but we finally did it and then quickly found walked back to our hotel room so Calen could take a much needed nap!

Jeremy and Calen goofing around

Once we got a very cranky Calen up (his body was telling him it was 1 am) we went to hang out for a few minutes with Robin and her family. Calen was extremly cranky so I didn't get any pictures but we will be meeting for breakfast today so hopefully I'll get some pictures of us together. Robin and I have been waiting for our kids at the same time... Calen and Jake were in care in Korea at the same time and Charlotte and KatieJoy have been in care at the same time. When you're waiting partners for something so life changing, you become close! :) So it's been awesome to get to meet up in real life in Korea!

At 6 pm we got picked up by another few friends from our adoption world. They live in Korea and we have a special connection that I can't explain online for privacy reasons. These women, who are sisters, took us out to one awesome Korean restuarant! It was a little hard to communicate but Amy (this is her American name) could speak some English and interpreted for us all evening! It was so much fun to get to hang out with these women! They treated us to dinner and brought gifts for our family... I'm so glad that I knew we would be meeting with them so that I was able to purchase gifts for their family before we left California! The food that we ate was delicious and we had the BEST chicken dish... Allen and I hope to go back there for dinner again this week since it was only a 5 minute walk from our hotel in the Insadong shopping district which is a very touristy area that we should be checking out today or monday!

Our delicious dinner

Our sweet Korean Friends!

Once we said our goodbyes to these fabulous women we went up to our room to call it a night. Sleep came easy but was hard to keep. I was up at 2:30 am wide awake until 4 am. I did fall asleep again until 6:30. This is what's going to kill my energy level... jetlag hasn't really been a problem for any of us which has been very nice! Today we get to meet up with Calen's foster family! They are meeting us at our hotel at 11 am and I am so excited!!! It will be amazing to meet them and thank them for all they did for our sweet boy... More from me tomorrow... unless you're all tired of the pictures and massive amounts of dialog! LOL!

Love you,

~Mandy~