Friday, October 17, 2008

Day 1 Seoul, South Korea

Our flight over was great and we don't seem to be feeling any jet lag, perhaps because it was night when we arrived and we went right to bed.

 Today was fabulous! As you will see from the photos, we visited the Social Welfare Society babies' home today where Jake lived from birth to 2 months of age. The babies are beyond gorgeous and we got to hold as many as we wanted!! I held a baby that was born two days ago. The lady who met with us gave us gifts, a set of wooden chopsticks for Dave and I , and a ceramic mom and dad holding a baby for Jake. So lovely! She sat with us and let Jake look through his entire file, and we even got a copy of a newborn photo that we didn't have. She told him that, when he is 18, they will help him search for his birth mother if he is interested. They don't allow searches before the age of 18. I had sent his birthmom a necklace soon after Jake was born and it was still in the file, so she hasn't been back yet. This was a day none of us will forget!

Before our meeting at SWS, we went to COEX, which is the Korean world trade center. The beautiful flowers you will see in the photographs are from the floral displays in front of COEX. We enjoyed seeing a group of preschoolers in uniform touring the gardens while their teacher taught them to say "hello" and "good-bye" to us in English. Even the very little children here bow when they greet us - so adorable. In the lower level of COEX is a huge shopping/restaurant area where we had lunch. We had Chicago pizza Uno - shame on us! Many people from the nearby office centers were coming in for lunch while we were there and we were impressed with how beautifully dressed they were. Most of the men wore suits while the women wore lots of black clothing with layers, tights and leggings with very high heels.

We are about to go out to dinner now. There is an area called Dongdaemun Market where the shops are open all night, playing loud music and displaying cheerful colors. We will check that out for sure!

It was nice losing a day traveling here because that puts us a little closer to getting Gage. It is now Friday night here and we wonder what he is doing and thinking. We really don't know if he has been told yet that we are coming to get him on Tuesday. Please pray that God will ease his transition to a completely new life with us. We can't wait!

Thanks to all of you for supporting us through this journey. More news tomorrow!

1 comment:

Erin said...

I did the same flight to Korea, it worked out really well for jet lag.

I loved Korea, I wished I would've been able to spend more time there. Don't feel bad about the food, I can relate. I'm almost embarrassed to say how much "American" food I ate over there.

Have fun running around today!