Roller Coaster Day in Korea

I am way behind in blogging, but no internet last night at hte hotel, even tho it was a very nice hotel. So will try and catch up at least a little...

Two days ago...
Packing for a 4 night trip and trying to separate from what you think you will need to what you think you won’t need, not easy. Then try to remember all the donations for along the way. Onto the bus and buckle down for a four hour trip to Jeonju. The people on our bus though, we are dropping like flys with people getting sick. Not sure exactly what it is going around, but it usually lasts around one day, but it’s not the pretty stuff going around.
The rest stops in Korea are more like strip malls. The snacks are pretty amazing there, some hot, some cold, this and that, and then some. Very cool. We began watching a movie, “The Little Bride”. Took me a while to catch on that the little girl, who was playing a 15yr old, was named Boeun. That is Kora’s Korean name. How ironic on such a trip! I think Taylor and I were the only ones watching the movie, it’s quite different watching a Korean movie and having to read subtitles. But then we arrived at our destination before we could watch the ending.
Our first stop was the Jeonju orphanage. I’ve been there plenty of times on my previous trips but it never gets old hearing the excitement of the children’s voices even before we reach the front door and it’s not even Christmas time. Imagine the excitement to have people come and give attention just to you for a short time. Really, the feeling is amazing for us visitors.
Those that have traveled to this orphanage with me, you know how special the performances are and how adorable the kids are. This time didn’t disappoint either. It’s amazing to see the joy in performing for us but it’s such a gift to us to see them. It touched my heart to hear one of the girls say to a staff member that she remembered me.
Kora was then able to give the Director the gifts that she had received from her friends for her birthday party that were donated just for this trip. The Director said to Kora how blessed she was to have such giving hearts. So for any parents of Kora’s friends, or even Kora’s friends, that are reading this blog, thank you for your generous hearts. You have no idea the joy that you gave to these children that are in such difficult circumstances with their current families. I always appreciate all of the giving hearts when I make my trips here.
I was fine with my emotions this time visiting until I watched adoptees and parents holding the babies. It tugs at my heart that these children are in the situation they are in and that their parents are struggling with life. I see myself in the eyes of these children every time I’m here because I was a child of these difficult circumstances. I always pray that these children will soon be reunited with their families or be able to be adopted domestically into a loving family. These children and their families didn’t ask for this difficulty in their lives, but I do know God will watch over all of them.
As always, the time spent with the kids is cut too short. It’s a struggle to get everyone to let go of the babies or toddlers they are holding. I literally have to pull off some of the kids that are hanging onto people. It’s tough letting go on both sides.
After lunch, we were on our way to Daejon for our homestays with Korean families. Each family and adoptee on this tour were assigned a family to stay with for an overnight to experience traditional Korean life. Since we have five people in our family, we had to be split up. I was with Kora and Taylor and Skip and Erika were together. After the introductions of tour participants and host families, everyone went their own way for the night.
Our host mother, she came up to me and gave me a huge hug and gave Kora a huge hug along with Taylor. Our host mother spoke English, so was able to communicate with her well. When we arrived at her house and we all got out of the car, Kora was not looking well and she started to cry. I couldn’t believe she was not feeling well and we had just gotten to our homestay! I told her to suck it up since we had just gotten there. Not a good start…
We met our host father and 11yr old son, which neither one spoke or understood English. The 11yr old was playing video games on the computer so the dad handed Taylor a Nintendo DS, but Taylor couldn’t figure out how to play since it was in Korean. So we all sat around almost in silence. No one asked us any questions. Our host mother had said we were going out to dinner for a traditional Korean style meal. We first had to pick up their 15yr old son from Academy, where he was studying for his exams. He had been there all day and it was Saturday.
Taylor did his best to engage in conversation. It’s quite the learning experience when there is a language barrier but Taylor did well with the 15 yr old’s limited English. We arrived at the restaurant and enjoyed the meal. Taylor was really into the meat portion as usual. Kora at a little since she hadn’t really eaten much at lunch but I told her she had to eat something. The host family’s friends had arrived and sat down for the meal, but none of them asked us any questions. We just ate the meat the mother was giving us. I looked at the clock and it was only 7:30pm but I was exhausted already and could have fallen asleep right there. I think Kora and Taylor felt the same way.
On our way home, we had to drop off the 15yr old back at Academy for him to study some more. The Korean education is very hard and Academy is another way of gearing up for final exams though this is an extra cost to the family. During Academy, kids can study up to six hours a day just for exams. I kept telling Taylor he had it very easy back home.
When we arrived back to the host family’s house, Taylor, Kora and I were gearing up to go to bed even though it was only 8:30. Kora and I would be sharing one room and Taylor in another room by himself. As Kora and I got into bed, both of us were too hot to sleep. There was no air conditioning in the room. Kora was using her little portable fan but the air in the room was very stifling. This time of year in Korea is monsoon season, so the humidity is at a ridiculous level. I felt bad for Kora, she hadn’t been feeling well from the time we arrived and now she had to suffer not feeling well in a hot room. I didn’t want her to have to suffer, let alone me getting a tremendous migraine from the heat so I was going to have to tell our host family that we needed to go to the hotel so I could take care of Kora.
So, I go to tell our host mother, but she isn’t home, no one is but me and the kids. What do I do? How do I communicate with anyone in Korea? So in desperation, I turned on my blackberry. I didn’t care how much it would cost me, but if only I could get a hold of Skip on his blackberry. So as I turned on my phone, I began receiving many messages from not having it turned on continuously. I sent an email to Skip hoping he would check his email, that is, if my blackberry would even work in Korea because we hadn’t done anything to it for international travel before we left home thinking mine had no capabilities in Korea as we learned from my previous trips.
By a miracle, I received Skip’s automatic out of office email from work…I was so excited that my blackberry worked! So I sent Skip an instant blackberry message praying maybe that would work too, but that wasn’t looking good so far as there was the unreachable symbol on his bb messenger. I continued to check my email to see if Skip would happen to respond back…it seemed like an eternity but by a miracle, the bb messenger worked and Skip had actually checked his blackberry…we were connected!!!
I told him the situation with Kora. He immediately said I needed to get to the hotel with her, but how the heck was I going to do anything with no one home at our homestay?! So Skip was frantic in working out something via his host family as all the host families were given the contact number of Mr. Hwang, a Holt Korea staff member in charge on our trip. I told Skip he needed to have his host family call him for me since no one was home here. Skip’s host family helped him on his end to call Mr. Hwang and arranged for a hotel room and I guess now, for all of us, Skip and Erika were going to the hotel too to help me out with Kora.
It seemed like hours before I heard someone come home at our homestay. It was the father and his 11yr old son. I started talking to him explaining about Kora, but he didn’t understand me. He called his wife and I explained to her the situation with Kora and how I needed to get her to the hotel so I could take care of her rather than having her be sick at their house. I had to wake up Taylor and tell him to get ready to leave. He was so out of it and was sprawled out on his bed with just his boxers on. I told him it was 9:45 and he asked me if it was morning…I’d say he was out of it!
Our host mom got home very fast. I told her the situation with Kora and needing to get to the hotel. I told her we could take a taxi but she insisted on driving us there. On the way, she told me she was sorry that she was out but was shopping for a gift she forgot to get for me. Along the way, I bb'd Skip to let him know we were on our way, he and Erika had already headed out too.

When we arrived at the hotel before Skip and Erika. It was nice to be able to be in one room with Kora rather than in someone's house I didn't know. Skip and Erika arrived soon after and we all settled in for the night.

At breakfast, we heard someone else was sick too. Something has been going around and it hasn't been fun! Luckily, whatever is going around usually lasts only a day. Onto the day's adventure...which I will have to type tomorrow since I have to go to bed right now, I am tired!

Maturity Switch?

Skip and I love to live life to the fullest and we don't always take things too seriously, but we do know when we need to turn on the 'maturity switch' when circumstances call for it. But, you combine us with Jeff, Amy, Debbie, and Brian...sometimes that maturity switch doesn't get flipped on. We all love being together and we laugh a lot together.

The other night, we were hosted by the Mayor of Jungjo District for a palace tour and then to dinner. The entire time was filmed on camera and pictures were taken left and right of all of us and the Mayor. It truly did feel like they were papparazzi. Even while we were in the shopping areas, the cameras were there right in our faces. We couldn't take a step without a video camera or camera in our faces. Now if we could just get our hands on a newspaper around here! The footage was also going to be on the local news, which one translator told Erika, local means the entire country.

Dinner came and the formailities were taken care of, even I was asked to make the toast at the very last minute, which of course, that is one instance where I can turn on the maturity switch and become formal.

We were hosted to a very formal traditional Korean meal. Seemed tho the food kept coming and coming, think someone counted about 19 dishes. So, the maturity switch, kinda got lost at our table, even tho we were sitting with the Mayor. Leave it to us to do that! But we can't take all the blame, the Mayor did contribute to our behavior. He would feed Beth next to me and it is customary to eat whatever is given to you by someone. Poor Beth, I was just glad I wasn't sitting next to him. I wasn't hungry and if I was being fed, I am not sure what I would have done.

Skip was brave, he did try every dish that was placed in front of us. And when I was in the restroom, the Mayor had grabbed a piece of sushi, added the wasabi and fed it to Skip. Now that caused some laughter. Then there were these sesame rice things that looked like black popsicle sticks. The Mayor fed one to Jeff and continued to say, "Man Power! It will give you vitality". Mind you, these were somewhat interesting to eat, as I was told, and it was funny watching people eat them. Then Jeff adds to our laughter and eats another one and the Mayor gives the thumbs up sign to him. Needless to say, our table was laughing thro/out the entire dinner. But the laughter was what we call, church laughter, where you laugh silently and your shoulders are bobbing up and down because you are trying desperately to contain yourself. We were laughing so hard tho that we were in tears. I can't wait until Amy catches up on her blog as she was writing everything down as the night went on.

We asked Brian and Debbie to come to our table towards the end of the meal and we then gestered to the Mayor and said, "Man Power" and pointed to Brian. Sure enough, the Mayor got up and gave one to Brian and then another Brian in our group. So it wasn't all that bad that we didn't have our maturity switch on the entire dinner, the Mayor was laughing also. Good sport. It was a memorable dinner and it's always great sharing good times with good friends.

New Information?

Maybe there is new information out there for me about my past...today, Skip and I went to see the hospital I was placed in after I was found. Quite the van ride, as those that have traveled to Korea with me, you know what the driving is like here and the traffic. Needless to say, we were very glad that Skip and I decided to make this journey with just the two of us because we would have had some complaining and maybe sick kids. The kids went on the tour with the rest of the group that was sight seeing. We would meet them at lunch once we were finished.

After much traffic, we finally arrived at the hospital, or at least the hospital that is now currently there. The original hospital had been torn down. Our translator told us that the person at the hospital said our appointment was scheduled for yesterday. Anyway, we were able to get the gist of it and then was able to look at an old photo album of pictures from the original hospital, the City Baby Hospital. I took a couple of pictures of interesting ones but it takes too long to post on here so will have to post pictures when I get home. No pictures of me though, but then again, there was a group shot that I could be in, but we will never know as it was shot around the time I would have been at the hospital.

Then it was off to show Skip the orphanage I was in for 3 1/2 years of my life. I had visited there back in 2006 so wanted to show Skip. After much driving in circles, we finally found it. I'm very glad I had Skip with me this time, he's very good at asking questions, as when I was there in 2006, I wasn't able to comprehend that I was at the orphanage so really didn't ask too many questions about my paper. I was finally able to clarify and translate more of what was written on my admittance paper. There had been several dates stamped on the one piece of paper and it was nice to finally figure out what each date meant.

Then one number written in the middle, which looked like a case number, the social worker and director said this could lead to more information. The case number came from the children's welfare corporation, which is still in operation today. So the social worker made a call and they will be looking to see if there is any information regarding this case number on my paper. Who knows what will come of this, but it was great to be able to get just a morsal more of information even if it doesn't lead to anything else. The puzzle pieces keep coming together and the the picture is becoming clearer.

We didn't get to see the kids in the orphanage, they were in school, but we did see the babies sleeping and the 3-4 yr olds eating lunch. So off to lunch ourselves...well, with such bad traffic, by the time we met our group, they were done eating. No biggie, I wasn't hungry and neither was Skip so we walked around, thinking we would shop but came up with a slushy and mini Dunkin Donuts. Great lunch! And what did we do for dinner? Outback Steakhouse...it was yummy! I love Korean food, but I have plenty of days for eating Korean food.

Now we are packed to travel further south. It's really hard to pack clothes just for 4 days and pack the rest up to leave at this hotel. A family of five is not easily packed into carry on sized suitcases, but you know the Hansons, we did it! We are bringing donations also for an orphanage and the unwed mother's shelter that Kora's birth mother stayed at before giving birth to Kora. Our little way of giving back for helping her mother while she was in need at such a critical and lonely time in life. We pray for her everyday and hope she knows we think of her often and thank her for giving us our precious and lovely Kora.

Time

When I am on a tour like this, time gets away from me. But then again, our schedule is busy and most of our time is spent on the busses and touring Seoul. I was in a group last night and it was crazy to think we had only been here two days...wow, seems like we've been here longer.

Yesterday was file reading day. I've read my files, but the Holt office set up another reading for me. Nothing new from last time, just clarified the translations of the description of me as a child from the orphanage: Selfish, healthy, cheerful, and often crying...weird combinations. With no new information, I will be placing an add in the Korean newspaper with my picture and my circumstances of where I was as a baby and the orphanage I was in for 3 1/2 years. We will see if anything comes of this method. The other method of a search is going on tv. I may have to make another trip just to do that.

I don't have any expectations, however of finding any birth family members. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. But if I don't try, there would be that sense of, 'what if' and I don't live like that. I am doing this search to give peace to my birth family, because being a mother myself, I would always be wondering too. God will be by my side guiding me thru all of this, as he has led me thru everything else in my life and he will give peace to my birth family somehow even if I never connect with them. I will always pray for them.

We also had the opportunity to meet Kora's foster mother. I had met her in my previous travels so she recognized me immediately. To my surprise, Kora's foster father also came along. What a sweet and caring man. He was so happy to see Kora in person. I had left pictures from my previous trip so they could see pictures of Kora growing up and our entire family. The foster mother was carrying a baby boy, six months old, yes, another foster child. This foster family has been fostering children for 16 years. What wonderful and loving people to do this type of work to open their hearts and homes to give love and care to children during the hardest months of a baby's life.

It was fun being able to talk to them, thru a translator of course. The translator was a very young Korean lady, she was very soft spoken. Kora's foster parents gave her gifts and we gave them more pictures of Kora along with some candies. It was so sweet hearing them talk about how happy and smiley Kora appeared and told us how happy they were knowing Kora was in a happy, good family. They talked about how Kora was a very happy baby when they took care of her. What a blessing to us for these foster parents that loved our Kora so much during her first four months of her life. Skip and I are forever grateful to them and we hope to keep in touch with them to keep them updated on Kora.

I can't imagine being in their shoes, taking care of babies, giving love to them and then having to let them go. I asked them how that was for them. They said it breaks their heart each time, but are also happy to know the babies are going to a family. Amazing people to me. Holt Korea has 400 foster families. It's incredible to see all the foster parents bringing in their children to the Holt office for check ups and such. Each baby I see, they are so happy. God is good, when we have people like our foster families.

I will continue later, guess I have to get ready for the day...love to everyone!

Additional info

I know I am tired when I forget details, but then again, I am not good with jet lag either. It's also hard for me to not be able to blog in the middle of the night when I can't sleep with other people in the same room sleeping. I had a tough time sleeping last night and would have liked to have blogged but oh well..

I forgot that after the health screening check, we waited in line forever for immigration. Of course, we chose one line thinking that would be the fastest line then ended up switching lines and yeah, you guessed it, it wasn't a good line. Other families in our tour were ahead of us and they went up as a family rather than individually so figured we could do the same thing. We all go up to the immigration officer, Skip handed out all the passports and the one male immigration officer looked at me and shooed me to the line. As in, back to the line. I told him I was with my family but he shooed me again gesturing I should go back to the beginning of the line and wait my turn. Hmmmm, guess I really blended in and he thought I wasn't a part of the family, but why me? Why not Skip? He's the one that is the minority of our family AND a minority in Korea! Weird.

Of course, I get Koreans speaking to me in Korean. I just look at them with a big smile and say, English.

Now onto to my day...

Arrival into Korea and First Day

We made it to Korea and as usual, it was a long flight and a long day, but that is always a given. Trying to sleep on the plane, well that's a given too that I don't sleep well. Time passes quicker when you can watch movies tho.

It was fun watching Kora be so excited about being on such a cool plane and be able to watch movies and play video games! Besides the fact she got to sit with her best friend from Oregon, Emma. They are truly two peas in a pod and can pick up where they left off from when they last saw one another. Such a great thing to be able to have friends so far away, yet be the best of friends when together.

We arrived at the Seoul airport and something new, we had to go thru a health screening after deplaning. Had to fill out yet another form for that to see if you had a cough, sore throat, watery eyes and all that. But as I was in the plane, a lot of people began coughing and had runny noses and watery eyes just from being on the plane over 10 hours! Ironic..

When we arrived to our hotel, luckily we were able to settle in quickly and go to bed, it didn't take much for all of us to fall alsleep. I did well and only woke up once in the middle of the night and then up at 7:00.

Our day was touring the Korean Folk Village. I tend to people watch more than do the tour thing. I like to watch people experience Korea for the first time. Kora, Taylor, and Erika's first trip to Korea, but not sure it has really sunk in that they are in Korea. Ok, maybe for Erika it has.

It's been fun watching Kora become great friends with the other girls her age. They have a blast on the bus together and around the places we go. I think I am making Kora angry by telling her she doesn't need to buy something until we go to my vendor at the Hotel. She thinks I'm nuts but it will be worth it.

Not much else today, thank goodness as people are tired the first day. Tomorrow we will be at the Holt office and will feel more like we are in Korea...I think. So will try and write tomorrow.

There is nothing like starting off a trip with only just 3 hours of sleep. But then again, we had a great reason for being up later than anticipated. We sold our house! Woohoo!!

But 3:00am comes all too quickly. Packing the car with 10 suitcases and 5 people, yeah, figure that one out, but my hubby did and there was a smidgen of room for my youngest to buckle in.

Then it's unload time and to the ticket counter. Those that know me know I travel quite a lot so I do know my way around the ticket counter. But apparently, the ticket agents don't see that. The one 'helping' me with the self check in kiosk...first of all, it is a self serve checking, why do ticket agents have to help? They are just agents not behind the counter.

So as I am using the self check in, I asked my 'helper' if she wanted to use my passport instead and she said I just needed to use the bar code off of my boarding pass. So onto checking in the luggage...the total checked was 8, so up comes the total I need to pay...not good, as I know we aren't charged for two bags flying internationally.

I let the ticket agent, behind the counter, know that we are traveling internationally and she continues to say she needs to see that boarding pass, which, duh we don't have until we get to Seattle. So she continues to say that I need to show proof that I actually paid for this entire international flight and I therefore retrieve my printed out itinerary.

She looks at it and looks at me and tells me she can't read it...what? It's a computer print out, not my hand writing! She continues, very rudely I must say, to tell me she can't find the ticket number. I am juggling 4 passports and 10 boarding passes and she is being short with me...thank goodness I was calm as can be.

Skip comes along, he dropped the kids and I and the luggage at the curb then parked. I asked Skip for his passport and once again, the ticket agent says she can't read the printed out itinerary. Skip gave me a 'look'. He tells her it's sabre and she says, "Well we use apollo". The look again from Skip.

We did finally get checked in with all 8 in bags...I am very good at packing, once again, my luggage weighed 49lbs. on the dot!

I am just grateful I was the one that was at the ticket counter before Skip, he would not have been a happy camper and would not have been a good way to start off our trip. Can you imagine...we have an hour flight to Denver, 3 hour flight to Seattle, and then an 11 1/2 hr flight to Korea. Nope, would not have turned out pretty.

I am just glad I am calm as can be. I'm ready...

Crazy Day!

Could my day be any crazier yesterday? Um, yeah! Besides the continuous flow of kids swimming and laundry and carpool and trying to keep the house clean, I decided to shop for furniture! Only because my favorite furniture store is going out of business and their sale started yesterday...what a zoo!! I was there almost two hours because it was wall to wall people and grabbing a sales person was nearly impossible! Thank goodness I had my sister with me, she was a tremendous help and we secured some furniture!

Then the For Sale sign went in the yard and as I was cooking my daughter's birthday dinner, not even 10 minutes later, we had a showing request...ahhhh!! I kicked out all three of my kids' friends, yeah, nothing like a house full of kids! Once again, thank goodness for my sister! I called her over to stage my house as we ate dinner, couldn't disappoint my daughter could I?

The showing went well, they want to see it again!!! Then back to reality, I HAD to start packing for Korea, my closet was a complete disaster, not good for selling a house! So, I got two suitcases packed with donations and packed my suitcase. Thanks to my families that have given me donations to take to Korea, you guys are amazing! The closet looks so much better and I do feel better and not so overwhelmed, still overwhelmed, but not as much....breathe.....

My daughter had a nice birthday celebration within the midst of it all so it's all good. Thank goodness all the kids are 100% behind moving to a new house! Phew! Now on with today...3 days till Korea...

Really Moving

Like I needed more to do before Korea, but that's just the way it is around here. Life changes and we go with the flow around here and live life to the fullest. So our big news is we are moving and selling our current house! Our whole family is excited and can't wait to create another home in a place we all fell in love with!

With the help of my sister, we got our house staged, cleaned up, spruced up, de-cluttered and ready to sell in one week! The official sign goes in the yard tomorrow. Wow! Seems like a whirlwind, but we really did our homework with this because we swore we would never move again. Anyone that has ever moved, unless you are not normal, you know how horrendous of a job it is to move! And to try and keep a house clean with five people in it, wish me luck! But we are all thrilled and we can do it!

Now I can fully enjoy my trip to Korea, come back and gear up to create another loving home. Yahoo! I've been so blessed..

Whoa..two weeks??

Yikes! Looking at my countdown calendar to Korea says 14 days...whoa!! Can't believe how fast it is approaching now. I think I am ready with my clothes, it's the kids that I have to prepare. Shouldn't be that hard, right? It's like any other trip, right? Cha, right! We are talking international and for two weeks! That takes a lot of planning!

Okay, take a deep cleansing breath as my Sistah Amy would tell me...think we have been taking that cleansing breath around here with so many changes. We are now in the midst of a major deep cleaning of our house...okay, I haven't quite started, but everyone else has! The kids' rooms look amazing and can't believe they are the same rooms. The garage looks amazing and so darn big. My hubby worked very hard at cleaning out everything and was putting things out at the end of the driveway with our 'U haul it, it's free' sign and people were coming out left and right taking it all...thank goodness! I teased him that I wasn't going to step foot out in the garage for fear he would put me out by the sign! We did sell a few items for actual money too, bonus! That is the way we clean around here, sort, throw, and give away.

I know, I'm stalling at cleaning up my stuff...ten minutes at a time for me, really I did at least ten minutes yesterday. It's all good really, as there will be a major change coming soon...

Amazed at how fast life goes by...

To this beautiful young lady...

Amazing...