Exploring Seoul

Or:
"Burning Time Until We Get Louis"

After our successful second meeting with Louis yesterday (Weds), we took to the streets for a western meal (Tiff was very pleased) and to some of the shopping districts around Seoul.  We went to Itaewon then back for dinner near Hongik University (which is near our temporary home at Eastern).

Today we had a nice breakfast on the way to the subway, then headed to Insadong (where we stayed in 2007) and Dongdaemun (an overwhelming shopping district) for some sightseeing and more shopping.

In less than an hour we'll be meeting up with 2 other Minnesota couples and head to a walking tour in Insadong of the local food/drink.  It should be great and we're looking forward to even more new experiences with new friends.

Here are some pics of the last day or so after our meeting with Louis:

A little Burger King goes a long way...

The streets of Itaewon:

A much needed caffeine stop at Tom n Toms coffee, who offers "tall" and "grande" sizes and whose logo looks strikingly familiar to a coffee house started in Seattle...

Eating outside near Hongik University.  If anyone knows the history behind these walls, please let us know!

A great breakfast this morning on the way to the subway...every day should begin this way!

Looks like we missed the Seoul Fringe Fest by about a week...

The subway has become a familiar place for us- good thing the cars are air conditioned...

Visiting a scroll shop in Insadong to get Louis a scroll with his name and birthday written on it...

Lions Club way up on the top of the building- a familiar sign!

One of many "gates"...this one located as you come up from the subway at Dongdaemun:

Every man's nightmare: an insane discount shopping district!

Can this motorcycle pack anything else on the back??

More to follow in the days to come!  Hope all is well where ever in the world you happen to be reading this blog!

Minor Corrections!

Good Afternoon All-

It is early morning here in Seoul and we wanted to let you know a few things in regards to the blog.  First, we had a few questions via email about the "comment" section not allowing comments.  Doesn't seem right, does it?  Well, after digging through the settings it is now adjusted to accept comments from anyone.  Free speech rules again, although we still have editorial control!  :)

The official "pick up" of Louis will happen tomorrow at 4pm, not 4:30 pm.  I typed 4:30 from memory the other day, giving you a good indication of where that's going in my old age.  I would have showed up 30 minutes late if I didn't have Tiff to help me!

And last but not least, the time here in Seoul is 14 hours ahead of CST.  Just add 2 hours to the current time and change am to pm or vice versa.  Mary- I'll work on getting the clock on Louis'  blog too!

Now to start our day- find coffee, find coffee, find coffee!  The rest are just details...

Have a great evening and comment away!

Scott & Tiff

Louis 2.0

This morning I woke up at about 5am and was unable to fall back asleep.  This was my first night of "natural" sleep, so I figured it was a victory to make it that late and decided to get up for the day.  Besides, we had our second meeting with Louis just 4 hours later and I was excited.  Below is a view from the kitchen on our floor where I now spend my early mornings.  Coincidentally, one of the St. Paulites I met yesterday morning was also in the kitchen (you guessed it- couldn't sleep) so I got caught up on how things went with their new little guy the day before (he said it went great, although they could tell there was quite an attachment to the foster mom- a challenge we all face).

So after getting dressed and ready for our second meeting, we headed to our designated meeting room and waited.  It was actually the same room in which we met Louis on Monday.  He and the foster mom were a few minutes late, but he arrived as we thought- wrapped tight on his foster mom's back...half asleep.  It was the same time as Monday's first meeting, so we thought we might be doomed to repeat the same routine if he was tired once again.  Heck, some of us just have a hard time before we have a nice morning nap, right?

Our thoughts proved to be true as Louis got unwrapped and brought down off his foster mom's back.  He looked around, realized where he was, and started his sad cry once again, just as he had done on Monday.  It was even tougher for us this time, because we knew the next meeting would not be a dress rehearsal and we needed to make a connection if we were to kick things off on the right foot this Friday afternoon.  Below you will see a heartbreaking picture of Louis wimpering in his foster mom's lap.  Although the picture doesn't show it, there was a wet spot on her pant leg where his tears were falling. 

  The social worker thought it best that she and the foster mom leave the room and let us spend some alone time with Louis.  It was about 9:20am at this time and typically you have an hour for these meetings.  We thought that was a great idea and would give us a chance to break him out of his shell, something we knew was possible because of how our first meeting ended on Monday.

Tiff took him and held him as he cried a little as the foster mom and social worker left the room.  It was the first time we were together- alone.  Although the pictures below show his sadness, he was clinging to Tiff as she tried to cheer him up.  This was a good thing and much better than any sign of rejection, which is always a possibility.

We tried to engage him with a few toys, but with no success.  Finally Tiff told me to grab the bag of "yogurt melts" we had brought in case true bribery was needed ;).  She gently put one in his mouth and he let it sit between his teeth and lips, not sure what he thought of it and whether he should spit it out or chew it up.  After a minute or so he relented and started chewing.  Tiff gave him another one and it was at that moment we felt we had a true breakthrough.  Instead of putting it into his mouth he reached up to feed it to Tiff.  What a moment!  What a feeling!  (The picture below was actually a second take on the entire event because I was not prepared for such a wonderful photo op and luckily Louis is a very generous and sharing soul!)

Now we were having fun!  Tiff continued to hold him while I used the large stuffed animals to help bring him out of his shell.  The picture below shows the beginnings of his first of many smiles. 

At this point he felt comfortable enough to be let down on his own, and we discovered he really liked playing with the "teapot" full of balls.  For a while we simply took the balls out and put the balls in- he was having a blast...and so were we!

We even brought the toy car into the fun.  He sat in it sideways, but never got all the way in.  (I can tell, however, that he has an affinity for old Detroit muscle, so Dad don't sell the 442 just yet!)

I think he liked picking up the balls and putting them back into the tea pot more than he liked taking them out, which will make him a pefect playmate for Liv, who is quite the opposite!

Around 9:50am the foster mom and social worker came back into the room.  When he saw his foster mom he ran across the room to give her a big hug.  They asked how long he had cried and were pleased when we told them he didn't really cry at all and were really pleased when they saw the fun he was having.  The foster mom brought us a gift, so we used our last 5 minutes to open it and see what she had given us.  We got a hanbok (sized for a 2 year old), several of his favorite toys, and a stack of pictures that had been taken with the camera we sent over as a gift many months ago.  We were very appreciative for all the items, especially his favorite toys, as they will come in handy on the long flight.

Because of the tight schedules, there was another family due to use the room and we had to move out into the hallway near where we were after Monday's meeting.  Our situation moved even closer to permanent as we got more paperwork including his pre-flight documents, diapers, bottles, etc.  While Tiff was getting all of this handed to her and explained in detail, I took it upon myself to keep an eye on Louis (or rather chase him), as he took it upon himself to run up and down the hallways and explore every open door and even the closed ones.  Here he is after finding a toy in the waiting room.  He didn't want to ride it, but he sure liked pushing it around!

After we got all of the paperwork and information, it was around 10:10am.  Wow, it's amazing what can happen in just a short hour!  The social worker needed to get back to work, but she noticed how well things were going and asked if we'd like to spend more time with Louis before he went home.  Of course we were thrilled, so we got to "hang out" with him until 10:30am before he'd have to head home once again, for the last time.  We took him in the elevator up to our room and he really enjoyed the ride.  The movement of the elevator and the mirrors inside really provided entertainment.

We took out some of the toys we had brought for the trip home and he settled right in and started playing with them.  Here he is below learning how to use the toy "camera":

As you can imagine, 10:30 am came very quickly, so we made the fun elevator trip once again (Louis got to push the "down" button this time, making it an even better experience) to meet his foster mom.  He was happy to see her, but was quickly distracted by a foster father and little girl in the waiting room beyond.  What happened next sums up what we have learned so far about Louis.  The little girl had her shoes off while sitting on her foster dad's lap.  The shoes were sitting on the seat next to them, and Louis promptly went up to them, surveyed the situation, and picked up the shoes to give to the foster dad to put on the little girl.  Such a great little helper!

Then, as if things weren't going well enough, something else happened that really gave us reason to smile.  When he was called back over to be wrapped up for departure on his foster mom's back, Tiff was squatting next to the foster mom.  He turned and ran back over to us, but instead of stopping at his foster mom, he actually ran past her to give Tiff a big hug goodbye.  The foster mom made a joke of it, but we could tell she had a bitter-sweet feeling toward what had just happened.  Louis, or Ha Joon as he will always be known to her, has been with his foster mom longer than any other child she has cared for.  It will be a tough afternoon for her on Friday and we are eternally grateful for all she has done for our little Louis. 

I wish I had video of how well Louis climbs up on his foster mom's back...what a pro!

For those of you who have stuck with what will surely be my longest blog post, I thought I would share some interesting insights we have learned today about Louis through our questions and his pre-flight report:

• He weighs 12.7 kg, or 28 lbs!
• He wakes 3x per night, gets a bottle each time, then falls back asleep (this won't mean much to the non-parents out there, but wow we should be sleeping through the night by this stage!)
• He doesn't like cheese- in fact he spits it out!
• He started walking at 12 months and a few days
• He sleeps on a Futon with his foster dad
• To comfort him, she holds him and says "I love you"
• If anyone says "I love you" he comes up to the person and holds them
• He can tell each family member's belongings and brings them to each person (Liv, Guido, and Gabbey will really enjoy this!)
• He chose the thread, which stands for longevity, at the Doljabi ceremony at his Dol (first birthday)

I also thought I'd try posting a video of Louis playing with us today.  Still pictures do him no justice- he needs video to show how cute he is :).  Until next time- thanks for reading and supporting us!

Tuesday In Seoul

(For those keeping track, I apologize for being a day late with this post.  Pretend I posted it Tuesday night and you read it Tuesday morning to get the full effect of the story and timing!)

Tuesday morning started out pretty relaxed.  I woke up early and decided to grab some coffee, this time trying the Dunkin Donuts I had sworn off in the previous post (I should have stuck with my gut as the coffee was terrible- but the caffeine was still appreciated).  Afterwards I went to the kitchen on our floor in the guest house to listen to music and catch up on some emails.  There I met a couple from St. Paul, MN who had just flown in the night before and were to meet their little boy a few hours later.  I had a nice visit and ironically we might go out with them (and another couple Tiff met weeks ago on an adoption board) Thursday for a "food tour"- should be fun.

Later in the morning we headed to the Samsung District in Seoul, which is close to where Donaldson Korea is located.  It is also the location of the Seoul World Trade Center and you can tell it is a very busy business district with many nice sites:

Under this area is a huge mall called the COEX, convention and exhibition center.  It is a very impressive maze of shops, restaurants, and even a large movie theater.  Below you will see we found a group of young children on a field trip- the little girls reminded us of Liv!

After wandering around a bit and grabbing some coffee and a snack, we headed back outside and over toward the Hyundai department store where we would meet TJ, a fellow Donaldson colleague.

You can tell it was fairly bright as we squinted to take this "self portrait" in front of a fountain near the WTC.

We met up with TJ and we went by taxi to the Donaldson office...someplace I would never be able to find otherwise.

I had arranged to meet with the team over here to catch the up on what is going on with my business unit and provide some insights as to how they might use our product line to grow their business here.  I also got to meet a few new people and put faces to names, which is always great.  Tiff was a trooper through the whole thing, and spent our meeting time reading a book she had brought with her.  Thanks go out to Terry Lee, the Managing Director of Korea, for Tiff's use of his office!  (And thanks Tiff for being so patient!)

The highlight of the day was heading to dinner with some of the Donaldson team.  We had a traditional Korean meal and everything we tried was excellent (especially the makgeolli!).  Thank you to Lisa, Christine, and TJ for being such great hosts and spending your personal time with us!

After a long subway ride home we were back in bed and anxiously awaiting our next meeting with Louis, which was at 9am Wednesday morning. 

Good morning to you all as we say good night and turn out the lights!

"The Meeting": 11 Months in the Making

This morning started out better than either of us could have hoped.  We had successfully slept through the night and even woke up refreshed a few minutes before the alarm was to go off.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not, neither one of us was very nervous for this first meeting with Louis.  Our experience with Liv no doubt set the stage, plus being in familiar surroundings didn't hurt either.

Eastern has a new cafe on the first floor that has opened since our last visit in 2007.  All proceeds go to helping the mothers making adoption plans, so we were excited to both support this effort and get some much-needed morning coffee.  Apparently most cafes don't open in these parts until about 9am, including this new one, so we couldn't support it this time as we were due to meet our social worker at 8:50am. 

No problem, we remembered a nice bakery down the street that held earlier hours:

 And we did choose this familiar local bakery over one that looks a little more like something in the USA found across the street:

So breakfast came and went, and we were ready to head down to meet the social worker.  It was there we figured out our schedule for the remainder of the week:

Wedsnesday- meet Louis again at 9am
Fri- get Louis permanently at 4:30pm!

We also learned that we would be meeting in a group at 11:30 am to hear some words from Dr. Kim (not the original Dr. Kim as he passed away earlier this year; not Dr. Kim's son as we don't know his involvement at Eastern anymore; this is a woman and may be a related Dr. Kim, but we did not get a chance to find out yet) followed by a noon lunch featuring fantastic authentic Korean food.

Since there are so many families coming over here to "catch up" the adoption process (Korea had things on hold for about 8 weeks), this meeting with Dr. Kim was in a group as opposed to one-on-one as in the past.  This was nice for us, however, because we got to meet several other couples going through the process.  Many were from Minnesota (Champlin, Brooklyn Park, La Crescent) and others were from North Carolina, Portland, OR, and Chicago, IL.

But I digress!  So after getting our schedule for the upcoming days, we went to the play room where we would meet Louis and his foster mom for the first time.  Due to traffic they were a few minutes late, but that gave the A/C a chance to do its job (it was off when we arrived in the room).  It turns out we would have probably needed about 3 hours for the A/C to truly work- so our first meeting turned out to be hot and steamy!

Louis, or Ha Joon, came in on his foster mother's back and looked pretty relaxed.  We crawled onto the floor and waited for him to be unwrapped and brought down to play with us.  Prior to this, our social worker had been saying what a great little boy he is.  He always shares with his foster brother (she gave the example of splitting a cookie in half, which Liv and the pugs will appreciate) and even picks up toys the foster brother drops and gives them back (no doubt this will also be appreciated by his older sister).  He is even-keeled, doesn't have stranger anxiety, and never really raises a fuss about anything.

Well, we just became the exception!  Once he was put down on the floor with all of us, he took one look and started to cry.  It wasn't a loud or even obnoxious cry, but it was a sad cry.  His foster mom had been showing him pictures of us and I think he knows what is going on and that his life is about to change.

So, after some unsuccessful playtime and trying almost every toy in the room to get him to cheer up, the foster mom put Louis back on her back and he calmed down pretty quick.  We asked if he was tired, but both foster mom and social worker didn't think so.  We had a different opinion on the matter:

So after he calmed down a bit Tiff tried to hold him, but more toward the front.  This didn't work much, but probably because he wasn't used to it, not because he couldn't be soothed. 

I decided to try him on my back to see if that would work to calm him again.  What do you know?  I happened to guess right for once!  It wasn't the most comfortable position as I was squatting near the floor and didn't want to move, but it felt great that he was hanging on and relaxing on my back.

After a brief (real brief- about 10 minutes) nap, things were starting to turn for us and our little guy.  He had calmed down and was now getting used to us being around.  Our time in the room was up at this point, but coincidentally Louis had to have a check up (down the hall) right after the meeting.  Tiff took him off my back and things went much better:

We left the room and went out in the hallway toward the back where the clinic is located.  There we were greeted by other foster mothers and many other children.  It was very cool and the curiosity levels amongst everyone were high.  (Jeff/Melissa- doesn't she look a little like Amelia?)

Now the situation was getting much more relaxed and we were all having a good time.  Louis now felt right at home in Tiff's arms and I really enjoyed taking this picture given the start to our meeting just an hour earlier:

The real surprise of the day came a few minutes later when Tiff looked down to the clinic's waiting area and saw...Liv's foster mom!  We walked up and tried our best to introduce ourselves, mentioning Park Hee Seon (Liv's Korean name) and showing her Tiff's "Mom" and "Hee Seon" necklaces written in Korean.  She kept shaking her head denying that we should know her and making us feel like some crazy paparazzi!

We had actually prepared a large photo album for her and her husband.  We were going to leave it here at Eastern to be sent to her when possible.  So with a dash of speed I went up to the room to retrieve it and secure our reputations as sane people amongst the foster moms in the clinics waiting area.

I came back and right away flipped to page 1 where it showed a picture from our trip in 2007 of Liv, her foster parents, Tiff, and me.  She looked at a few seconds and then the light bulb came on (and we were redeemed!).  It was so fun to see her face as she flipped through the photos and saw Liv age about 4 years in a matter of seconds.

Here is a great picture of Liv's foster mom (with her current foster child), Louis' foster mom (flipping through the photo album of Louis' future sister), and Tiff with Louis (ever-curious about what in the world that sign is telling everyone?):

We stayed back in the waiting room area for about 20 minutes waiting for Louis' turn with the doctor.  It was very entertaining watching each foster mother learn of the antics that had just taken place: crazy Americans thinking they found their kid's foster mom, foster mom denying she is the right person, a photo album proves the entire thing true...we've all seen it in the movies hundreds of times :).  Louis' foster mom seemed to get a kick out of telling the story to every new person who entered.  Great memories indeed!

Finally Louis got called into the doctor and Tiff got to play the role she will have the rest of his life: Mom.  He was weighed and measured, his heart and lungs were listened to, his tongue got depressed, and throughout all remained on Tiff's lap very cool, calm, and collected! 

Yes, this was the little guy we had heard about earlier.  We had a rough start together, but that's all behind us now.

It was finally time to say our (temporary) good-byes and see them off.  In typical Korean fashion, he got wrapped up tight even though the weather is in the high 80s with 80+% humidity (I'll save the weather for another blog).  We miss him already, but we know the week will go fast.

See you Wednesday, Louis!

Arrival Into Seoul

I snapped this shot just a bit too soon, otherwise it would have said "Welcome to Seoul", but you get the idea...

Our first 10 minutes in the airport were a great reminder of how many people fit into small spaces in other parts of the world:

One of the coolest non-cool thing we saw in the airport on our walk to the train was a skating rink made of some type of PVC or plastic.  We thought it was a great tribute to the guests arriving from the "State of Hockey"!  Anyone know of this concept in the US?  It didn't look much easier than skating on ice, to be honest.  Perhaps safer?

One of the best changes that has occured in Seoul since we traveled here in 2007 has been the addition of an airport train.  The most stressful part of our last trip was taking the bus to Insadong and searching for our hotel.  We got off a stop too early and ended up walking way more than we had planned.

With the new train we were able to make it easily from the airport to the Hongik University station, which is within walking distance of Eastern and an area we know well from last time.  This is with no transfers and only about 5 stops prior to ours...all for around $8 for both of us...

Here are some pics from the train ride into Seoul from Incheon Airport (a little muggy and about 26 C...yes we're metric over here!):

So needless to say, it was an uneventful trip from the airport to Eastern, where we are staying in one of the guest rooms the entire week.  Uneventful is just what we needed!  On our way to dinner I had to snap a photo of Tiff in front of Eastern, reminscent of a similar one we probably took almost 4 years ago:

Finally, after 18+ hours of travel, including planes, trains, and automobiles, we made it to Seoul with time to spare to grab a nice local beverage:

We're off to bed now; we've earned it.  For those who don't know, we have a scheduled meeting at 9am tomorrow to meet Louis for the first time.  Since last September he has existed as pictures and brief descriptions only; it will be nothing short of surreal to hold him for the first time.

Keep us in your thoughts Sunday night as you settle into your Sunday night routines.  In the meantime, lives will be forever changing over here in Seoul.

Until tomorrow,
Scott & Tiff