We met her!

What a day we had! Since our days and nights are switched around, we had no problem waking up early this morning, in fact, John woke up at 4:30 am. We got ready, had a nice, leisurely breakfast and left the hotel about an hour and a half early for our 10:00 appointment...just to be on the safe side. It was quite a challenge communicating with the taxi driver, and so even though he dropped us off at the old office (Holt recently moved office locations), we got out anyway and figured we'd find our way to the new office somehow. We walked a familiar route to the reception center/guesthouse, where we'd visited during our last trip to Korea, and once there, we found a nice old man who walked with us and showed us how to get to the new office.

Holt reception center & guesthouse


Even after all that confusion, we still arrived early. Good thing, since it gave us a chance to relax and get our bearings before Jin-Ri arrived. We were a little nervous and couldn't believe we were about to meet her in person!

New Holt office building




Jin-Ri was a little shy and reserved at first, but she let us hold her and play with her. She loves playing peek-a-boo, but in Korean, you say "Jin-Ri op-da.......Ka-Koong!" What a cute smile she has! The social worker was very nice and was great with Jin-Ri. She translated for the foster mom, and we learned lots of information about what she likes and doesn't like, how she sleeps, what and how much she eats and drinks, what soothes her, etc. Jin-Ri got a little upset when the foster mom left the room for a few minutes, and we were all very glad when she came back!




After our appointment, we ran into the foster mom in the building a few times while we were getting ourselves ready to leave, and she offered to drive us back to our hotel. It was lots of fun watching Jin-Ri and playing with her in the car, until she zonked out. Her foster mom says she enjoys car rides, and we can certainly tell!




While we were on our way to the hotel, we called our friend, Chi-Yong, who offered to meet us there, as he lives nearby. We all ended up going to lunch at the Korean restaurant in our hotel. It was so great to see Jin-Ri and the foster mom in a more comfortable setting, where Jin-Ri was able to relax and be herself. She was every bit as cute and funny as she has been in all the videos we've seen of her. She was all smiles, and she entertained us by doing her funny "an-nyong-ha-se-yo", and bowing. It cracks us up. So, on a day where we'd normally only get an hour with her, we saw Jin-Ri for about 6 hours today! What a great first day!


Tomorrow, we are going on a guided tour around Seoul with another adoptive family, and will meet up with Chi-Yong afterwards. And on Sunday, we'll meet the whole family at their place. We're really looking forward to it!