Monday

Monday, June 18, 2007 – Meeting Owen Ray
We slept pretty well last night and woke up at about 6 AM today. We should be right to normal as soon as it is time to leave. I couldn’t find the U.S. Open on the TV, so I spent part of my morning hitting refresh, refresh, refresh, on my laptop to update the leader board and see Tiger miss his putt on 18 to lose to Angel Cabrera. Not as fun as it sounds.

We got on the subway and made our journey over to Holt. We thought that we were supposed to meet at the reception center and guest house and while trying to find that we got lost. We found the place about 30 minutes later only to find out it was at the general building where we started our journey.

Anyway, we met with the social worker there for a little bit, Ms. You, Duck Jin. We then had an opportunity to meet Owen! That's right, we decided on a name. We got to meet with his foster parents, both mother and father. It was easy to see that he was well cared for. The father took a special interest in him. It is sure that he has come a long way from being born 3 months premature. We spent about an hour and a half with his foster parents and the social workers talking about him. The pictures are below are of us and Owen as well as pictures of his foster parents.

We received several gifts from them. We got framed pictures of his 100th day old which are very nice. We also got a big photo album of him and them at different stages in his early life. It was a great experience. We get to go on a city tour with another family from Michigan (we won’t hold that against them) tomorrow. We then get to go to a doctor’s visit at 3 PM on Thursday and pick him up on Friday. Our time here will soon be over. We hope to go to the DMZ on Wednesday. I guess no trips down to Kwangju or Ulsan to see their birth cities. We will have to save that for another time.

On our way home we visited the World Cup Stadium and the shops inside. We then stopped and had lunch at a local restaurant. What I had, some kind of meat, was pretty good. Cathy had kimchi and seafood which was quite spicy. It was also my first opportunity to taste the local brew. It was OK, kind of tasted like Pabst.

Sunday

Sunday, June 17, 2007 – Seoul
We slept a little better last night. Jet lag seems to be going away. It makes me wonder how Liam didn’t show any signs of it when we got him. By the way, happy Father’s Day to our dads. My computer tells me it is 2:45 AM on Sunday, so nobody is awake right now.

We got up this morning and decided to try and make a test trip to Holt Children’s Services so that we know how to get there tomorrow. We didn’t do to bad of a job walking about 30 minutes and then taking the subway to where Holt is. It shouldn’t be to difficult tomorrow.

We then decided to take a 3 km walking tour from our tour book. It probably turned into a 10 km trip, but it was fun. Our first stop was the Seoul Art Museum where we saw a Monet exhibit that was visiting. It was amazing to see that they didn’t have many pictures. I think that the Milwaukee Art Museum has more Monet’s. I know that Chicago definitely has spoiled us. We then walked around, got lost and then got lost again. We found our way around to the old palace of King Sejong. We saw the changing of the guard in front of the palace gates and then walked back to our hotel. We took a detour through a huge market that reminded me of the Grand Bazaar in Instanbul. It was a pretty crowded and crazy place. Nevertheless, an interesting day.

We are now back in our hotel and I think we are just going to hang out for the night. There is a lot of English TV on since there is an Air Force base nearby. We may go out and try to find something to eat. Tomorrow we need to be at Holt at 11 AM to meet the little guy, who will hopefully then have a name. I hope to get some pictures posted following that.

Saturday

Saturday, June 16, 2007 – en route to Seoul via Tokyo
On Saturday we woke up, rather early, and I watched some more of the U.S. Open from our hotel room in Tokyo before we went down for breakfast. I know they attempted to westernize it, which I appreciate, but it was interesting to say the least. It was a buffet and the eggs were a little undone, but the bacon was the strange thing. It was like they thawed it in the microwave and then served it… strange. They had fish, seaweed, rice, etc… which we tried a little of each. We then left for the airport.

Northwest must have contracted with Korean Airlines because we were flying them for our trip to Seoul. We were upgraded to “Prestige” status for our flight. That meant we got to go to the VIP lounge for a couple hours and partake in all the frills. The better part was that we were in the Prestige (Business Class) section of the airplane. They had some BEAUTIFUL seats that reclined into a fully horizontal position and your own TV screen. I couldn’t even touch the seat in front of me in the seated position if I tried. It was great, unfortunately the flight was only 3 hours. We got our first real Korean meal, which was interesting.

We landed in Seoul and then proceeded to change some money and find the bus for our hotel. We arrived, checked into our nice (but not cheap) room and relaxed and then went to bed. Overall a harmless day. It is strange to be the racial minority. It isn’t even worth trying to fit in like in Europe. Mainly because I’m a foot taller than everybody else. I guess I know how Liam feels in Burlington. So long for now.

Thursday & Friday

Thursday, June 14, 2006 – en route from Milwaukee
We dropped Liam off this morning at Dan & Steph’s and then went to the airport. We flew to Minneapolis pretty quickly and then waited about two hours for our flight to Narita airport in Tokyo, Japan. Having flown to Germany last year for the World Cup on Northwest we were looking forward to the top notch treatment we got last summer; complimentary drinks, your own individual video screen and controller, those nice thingies that keep your head from falling to one side, etc… Well, we had none of that! A little disappointing but we made the 13 hour flight fine… almost. When we landed in Tokyo we found out that our flight to Incheon Airport outside of Seoul had been overbooked and/or cancelled. Either way, we spent the night at a hotel in Tokyo. Here is Cathy in her complimentary kimono. Here is a look out of our room on the third floor, too bad they didn’t give us our checked luggage so I could go swimming. Another weird thing is that the door to the bathroom is literally only 5’8” tall. The inside of the bathroom is normal height, but if you see later pictures of me with a big red mark on my face, that is why.

Friday, June 15, 2007 – Tokyo, Japan
I now have a big red mark on my head from hitting my head on the low bathroom door frame last night, ugh. We could only sleep until about 5 AM this morning, but to my surprise I was able to watch the U.S. Open on TV. Albeit in Japanese, I could still figure out most of it.

From what we saw of Japan (not much) it seems to be a very nice place. Things are very, very close together. I didn’t know that they drove on the other side of the road either. That was a little strange – can you make a left turn on a red light? The people at the airport were a big help as we tried to find our way to the place where they would bus us to our hotel. We met a South Korean teenager returning from a year of exchange school in the U.S., believe it or not he spent his year in Watertown, SD.

I always feel guilty that wherever we go as Americans that we expect the rest of the world to speak some sort of English and then I’m surprised again when they actually do! I wonder how we would treat someone who showed up in the U.S. not knowing a word of English.

For those of you who are concerned about my caffeine intake, I haven’t found a Starbucks yet. I’m looking forward to finding one of the 169 Starbucks in Seoul when we get there. That will be on my agenda for tomorrow morning.

As far as our agenda, we will be getting to see little #2 (and hopefully deciding on a name then) on Monday at 11 AM. We hope to go to the DMZ on Wednesday or Thursday. We have a city tour scheduled for Tuesday also. Then we pick up the little guy at 3 PM on Friday and fly home on Saturday.

Korea

Well, we are leaving today to travel to Korea. I thought I would give you a little background to the country if you don't know much. On the map are three cities of note. First, we will be staying in Seoul and taking care of all of our business there. The airport is about 30 miles outside of the city. I kind of hope we are able to travel around the country a little bit, but who knows. Second, Kwangju is in the southeast of Korea and is where Liam was born. Third, (W)Ulson is on the southwest coast of the peninsula is where son #2 was born. Both of them spent all of their time in Korea in Seoul in foster homes. You can visit a couple of websites if you are interested in learning more about the country. If you need to get a hold of us you can e-mail us as I believe we will have internet access while we are there.

1. The CIA World Fact Book - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ks.html

2. Korea.net - www.korea.net

3. The Lonely Planet Korea Guide - http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/destinations/asia/south-korea

Travel Tomorrow

We will be leaving at 12:10 PM tomorrow afternoon. We will arrive in Seoul at 9:30 PM on Friday night. We do know that we will be able to have internet access at our hotel in Seoul so I hope to update our blog here with pictures every night. Liam will be with the Brands on Thursday to Saturday and then with Grandma & Grandpa Dusseau from Saturday until we return. See everyone in about a week!

Spider Man

We traded Liam in for a little Spiderman or else an amatuer B-league wrestler.