Sunday, July 31, 2011

Summer in Korea, Part 3


I am a terrible blogger....
To pick up where I left off... from Busan we traveled (minus our 10 year old interpreter) to Seoul on the KTX train. It moves along at 200 MPH, which is really cool. We had the middle seats that face each other and have a table. The kids played games together and ate candy, sharing with the family across the aisle from us. When we arrived in Seoul we retrieved our bags and headed out to find a taxi to take us to Holt's Guest House. We had a large room with one twin bed and one double bed, and thankfully, air conditioning. Each day in Seoul we would pull out the tour book and subway map and decide where to go. We went to the Coex mall,Insadong, a palace and art museum, the National Museum of Korea (they have a great children's museum), Kukki Won (TaeKwonDo headquarters) and the Folk Museum in Suwon. We ate out, but often we would stop at the mini-mart at our subway stop and pick up raymon and an apple for our dinner. The kids all loved the fresh waffles that were brushed with melted butter, smeared with strawberry frosting, folded over and hand to us in a napkin. Seoul was hot and we moved slower, but we had a lot of fun. My son was very excited to get a new TKD uniform with "Master Kim's" written in Hangul. The museum was amazing. We only saw a small portion and both my kids can't wait to go back. We found a great book for kids that was translated into English that showed many of the displays from the museum and explained the history of Korea. In Insadong we returned to "Happy Mandu" and ate our fill. We bought some gifts for our family and friends. We met an adult adoptee who has been living in Korea and enjoyed a bowl of ice, ice cream/yogurt and fruit... I can't remember its name but it was very good on a hot day. The kids all enjoyed time spent in an arcade just being kids.
After Seoul we took a bus to Goseong - in the south east part of Korea. It was about a 5 hour ride. When we arrived we hailed a taxi and went to my son's Halmoni's apartment. We had been invited to spend the night. We were met there by the social worker from Eastern and the lovely middle school teacher who had translated for us in April of 2009. Halmoni had worked hard to prepare us a wonderful meal. We were happy to meet my son's Emo (aunt) and her baby. Halmoni brought out photo albums for us to see. We were finally able to see pictures of my son's Koran mother. I videoed them and we were allowed to take home 3. My son looks very much like his mother and his grandfather. He was pleased to know this. We hiked up the mountain behind Halmoni's apartment and enjoyed the beautiful views. That night we all slept together on the living room floor. The next morning we took the bus back to Seoul, then a taxi to Inchon, where we stayed a night in a hotel to await our flight the next day.