Whatever Day It is...

I’m not even sure what day/date it is anymore.  We keep this group moving!  It’s been fun tho, talking to everyone, getting to know them better, sharing stories, laughing.  This is the part I love the most.  Such a variety of people, adoptees in their teens, adoptees in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and even 50’s.  Parents and siblings, sharing in the wonderful experience.  I can see everyone trying to soak it all in, learning all there is to know about Korea and surprised to learn more about Holt and very pleased to learn more.  Makes them appreciate their families more.

I’m not sure where I even left off on my last post, everyday seems to blend into one another.  And now I’m trying to type all that has happened on our bus ride down to Daejeon.  Good way to make the three hour ride pass by quicker?  I think most of the people on the tour were exhausted last night and kind of catching up still this morning.

We toured the palace yesterday and it was pouring down rain.  Everyone had rain gear, but it really didn’t matter, we all got soaked.  Everyone was a good sport about it, but seeing the palace in the rain isn’t the same, you don’t really get to see or hear all about the history of it. 

After touring the palace, we went to Kimchi World, yes, that’s what it’s called.  We learned how to make kimchi, tho it was a shortened version since the cabbage was already wilted and the sauce was already prepared.  All we had to do was rub the sauce into the leaves of the cabbage and put it in the container.  I HAD to try mine first, because it looked so good and we were not going to be able to keep it since we were leaving Seoul the next day.  But I swear I could have eaten the whole container by the time we had to leave!  Instead, we were donating all the kimchi to the unwed mother’s shelter, 35 containers!  They wouldn’t have missed one, would they?  Oh well, it was going to a good cause.  Then we made dukboki, not even sure how the heck to spell that!  It’s tubes of rice cakes and strips of fish cakes cooked in a spicy bean paste sauce…now that was yummy too and spicy!

Off to lunch for beef soup.  I ate the beef and a lot of the kimchi, radish kimchi and cabbage kimchi…can you tell I love kimchi?!!  I really need to start making it at home but I know my family would not like it one bit, it would smell up the whole house and I would hear complaining all the time, would it even be worth it?

The rain had stopped by the time we had finished lunch so shopping at South Gate market was back on!  I swear tho, every time we are able to shop it is speed shopping!  One hour is not even enough time to do any good shopping.  But I did manage to buy the 50 pairs of socks my friend wanted for the Portland auction.  The vendor was so happy I bought so many pairs, she gave me 5 pairs free.  My youngest daughter should be able to use them.

Walking along the busy and crowded street, all of a sudden a guy comes rushing thru telling everyone to move aside, move aside!  An ambulance needed to get thru.  Wow, talk about amazing, all the vendors in the middle of the street had to move their carts.  Took some of them awhile to get them moved out of the way, then the ambulance drove down the very narrow street.

The day wasn’t over yet!  We had to go to the Korean theater to watch a Korean play.  It was very good, and incorporated the tradional Korean drums, farmer’s dance, and musical instruments along with the love story.

The plan for after the day’s events was to go to Itaewon with one family to get measured for custom suits, then the group got bigger as more people wanted to go since Paul was going to show everyone how to use the subway.  Funny, we all loaded up into a subway and Paul yells out, get out, this is the wrong one!  You would have thought I was leading the group!  I still can’t figure out the subway system, it really confuses me…still, after this being my eleventh trip here.  I don’t know, I must have some mental block when it comes to that and the learning the language, my brain just can’t function.

We finally got to Itaewon, some of the group went to Outback, some of the group went with Paul to look at jewelry, me and my group walked all the way down the street to the tailor’s and it’s closed!!  What?  After such a long day too…so I called the tailor and thank goodness he answered, he said he would be just a few minutes and to please stay.  We waited about 10 minutes and he finally came.  Thank goodness, I was about to leave, I was already so tired from the day and all the walking.

After finishing up with the suits, Paul and his small group met us and we were trying to decide where to eat.  Paul and I decided to go back to the hotel and get chicken delivered so we took a taxi back.  I’m glad we did that, I still had to pack my two suitcases and pack the overnight for four nights!  While I was waiting for my chicken, I began to pack and then chatted with my hubby, first on messenger, then after getting the chicken, we decided to try facetime.  Wow, that worked out so much better than me having to type and eat at the same time!  The chicken was so darn tasty too, hit the spot and I think it gave me a second wind.  It was nice being able to see my hubby while talking to too, thank goodness for technology!  It was so easy talking that way that it was past 11:00 by the time I said I had to go to bed!  Going to bed later, I still managed to wake up in the middle of the night, around 4:00am this time, guess that was appropriate since I was going to bed at 10:00pm and waking up around 3:00am.

Sunday morning, woke up at 6:30am, showered and chatted with my family as I was getting ready.  Once I was ‘presentable’, we all did video chat.  Was great seeing my kiddos!  Kora had to tell me she was darker than me, then Taylor chimed in and said he was darker, so they were all trying to squeeze in the little itouch screen and show me their arms…I couldn’t tell the difference with the coloring on the screen.  I loved seeing everyone tho!  How awesome was that this morning!  And I saw Beaner and all he would do is tilt his head when he heard my voice.  Then I had everyone figure out how to do the face time on the big Mac monitor so I wouldn’t get so motion sick with everyone moving the itouch!  I was able to see everyone at once if they all sat in a certain place in the office, loved it!!  Kora was excited to tell me she was spending the night at a friend’s house again…her third sleepover in a row…wow, dad really rates when mom is out of the country!  But glad she’s having fun, that’s what summers are for.  I can’t believe it is July 1^st here at least.  It’s always weird for me when I figure out what the date is when I’m in Korea, time seems to slip by me, but probably because we are always so darn busy and moving all the time.

I’m sitting at the back of the bus now too, feels like ‘home’ so that is why I’m able to be on my computer and type my thoughts.  I’m sure we will be stopping at a rest stop soon.  I’ll get my breaded corn thingies again, still not sure what they are called.

Darn it!  Couldn't find my bread corn things!  So disappointing!  But did have the tastey potatoes and the red bean pancake, pretty much everyone in the group tried those.