Nobody said it was going to be easy

Today, we spent another 7+ hours with Leah Jin-Ri and her foster mom. Thank goodness we have our friend Chi-Yong available to help us communicate. Our foster mom and Chi-Yong have been so generous with their time during our visit, we are so grateful for that.



They visited us in our Korean-style hotel room, which was a perfect setting since the furniture in the room is very small-scale and low to the ground, and we could all slide around on the floor. Leah Jin-Ri is so active, she never stops moving. She free-stands for a really long time without support, and we noticed she can even go from sitting to standing without needing furniture or anyone to help pull herself up. But you do have to watch her very carefully because she's still pretty wobbly, especially since she likes to turn all the way around to see who's watching her. She's actually getting callouses on the top of her big toes from standing on them like a ballerina as she tries to get her footing.



We had fun again, observing her, playing with her, feeding her, making her laugh, all while trying to give her more time to get used to us. We had lots of toys here in the room, most of which were the ones we sent her beforehand. She loved the tall mirror in the room, and it was fun watching her look at herself and play in the mirror, grinning and smiling at our reflections.



But after lunch, we made the mistake of trying to take her out for a test-drive in our new Beco baby carrier. We thought it might be useful to try to take a walk and get out of the room for a while. So I put it on and we strapped her in, but she totally freaked out and screamed her head off immediately. Red face, tears running down her face, it was horrible. There was no way around it...we quickly switched the baby carrier from me to her foster mom, and she was still upset at first but calmed down a bit while we all took a walk through the hallways. Once she seemed somewhat calm again, John wanted to give it a try, so we switched her to him, and she protested a little less this time but he was able to calm her down by whispering in Dutch. She actually fell asleep for a while in the baby carrier and we were all quite impressed!



Later on, back in the room when she was totally zonked out, he tried to lay her down in the crib, but she immediately woke up and started screaming again. He tried comforting her using the same technique but it didn't work this time. Reality set in and we all realized that there is not going to be any easy way around this, even with all this advance preparation. She's an intense, active, expressive little girl who is so attached to her foster mom and family, after having already lost her first foster family, so she's definitely not going to take this separation lying down.



Well, once she was calm again, she was back to herself again, laughing, smiling and entertaining us for the rest of the day. Around 6:00 or so, her foster mom had to head back home to avoid rush-hour traffic. Jin-Ri was really tired and it was an emotional day for her. I'm sure she fell right asleep in the car ride home.

After they left, we went out to dinner with Chi-Yong. We decided to go to COEX mall, where we'd been many times in the past to watch movies. We were craving more Korean food, but we forgot that it's kind of hard finding Korean food at COEX. There were mostly western chain restaurants there. That's definitely the place to go if you are craving anything BUT Korean food. We ended up finding a small place and having yet another bibimbap, but that's never a problem for me and I could eat that every day. We checked out a big bookstore and picked up a new Korean drama to watch, too.



Tomorrow morning, we'll see Jin-Ri again at her pre-flight medical check at Holt. Since it was a difficult day for her, we all decided we should probably meet up again for a while tomorrow to see how it goes. We'll hang out a bit with her and her foster mom and have lunch together. Then we want to give the foster family the rest of the day to spend with her alone. And after that, at 10:00 am on Wednesday, we'll take custody of her and spend the rest of the day and night in Korea before we fly home. It's going to be one long, difficult trip home, we're afraid.

At Home with Jin-Ri

Another amazing day yesterday. We were invited over to Jin-Ri's foster family's house and spent the whole day with them. Chi-Yong met us at 1:00 in the afternoon and we took the metro and the bus together to their place. Good thing Chi-Yong was with us or we would have never found it. It was a pretty long trip. When we walked into their apartment, little Jin-Ri was sleeping on her side on the mat on the floor and was a little groggy at first when she woke up. Just like the other day, it took her a while to warm up to us. I think she recognized us from the other day, but she was a little shy in the beginning. She was probably wondering why all these people were sitting there staring at her. I think that would probably make anyone nervous!



So we all just talked amongst ourselves and she was able to relax and come out of her shell. We exchanged some gifts and received a beautiful hanbok for her to wear on her first birthday. We can't wait to see how it looks on her. It didn't take too long before she was back to her normal self, crawling all over, pulling herself up and standing, smiling and giggling. We enjoyed some delicious cheesecake, fruit, coffee and tea....and Jin-Ri tried the whole time to get at the food on the table. She definitely likes to be a part of everything the family does.




We learned that she really loves music, especially music with a beat. She sways back and forth and bounces to the music. She loves being tossed around and raised up in the air. And boy can she jump! She has such strong legs and she just keeps jumping and jumping every chance she gets.

Her foster mom showed us what kind of formula she takes, how to mix it, and her favorite things she likes to eat. It was so great seeing how they take care of her and learning what she likes and doesn't like.



We all went out to a restaurant for dinner. It was located in this really hip area of town with lots of rustic restaurants and clubs. It was the same restaurant from the videos where she is on the see-saw with her foster mom and sister, so we were able to see the exact spots where those pictures were taken. We enjoyed duck grilled over hot coals, sweet potatoes and a noodle soup. It was our first time having that, and it's been so neat to enjoy different foods this time in Korea.






After dinner, Jin-Ri's foster mom and sister took us out shopping to buy some supplies, so we went to a couple of these really big mega-markets, probably the equivalent of a Korean style Wal-mart, but one of the stores had 10 floors of stuff. We were looking for the same type of formula and bottles she uses. We also wanted to get one of those playmats that they have on the floor so she will have something familiar when we get back home. We're going to have one heck of a time getting all this stuff back home!






Anyway, we went back to their place and hung out a little while longer. Jin-Ri was being really lively and entertaining. It seems like she comes to life at night. We knew it was getting late and we should probably get back to the hotel since we were going to see her again in another 12 hours, so her foster mom was nice enough to drive us all the way back to our hotel.

Side note...we switched to a Korean-style room with an ondol floor yesterday. Since they are coming over to visit us today, a typical western style hotel room isn't very comfortable for a baby to crawl around in, so we were lucky to get the only Korean-style room in the hotel for the rest of our stay. What an awesome experience to be able to sleep on Korean-style mats on the floor. But I'm not so sure our backs will agree.

In a matter of minutes, they'll be here!

Seeing the Sights in Seoul

It was a gorgeous day in Seoul today. We had clear, blue skies and it was nice and sunny, although quite chilly and windy out. But it was a nice change from the last few days of dreary, rainy weather.

We spent the entire day out and about in Seoul, on our city tour which Holt provides for as part of our visit. Even though we've visited Seoul twice before and have seen just about everything touristy there is to see here, we decided to go anyway and just have fun...maybe meet new people. There was another couple from Milwaukee who met their baby boy for the first time at the same time we did yesterday and they're leaving a day ahead of us. We had 2 tour guides, Yuri and Song, who took the four of us around.

We started out at Holt and headed to Gyeongbokgung Palace, where we caught the morning changing-of-the-guard ceremony. After that was over, we walked around the palace grounds, enjoying the beautiful architecture. Admittedly, it all started to look the same after a while and it was easy to get turned around, but it was really gorgeous, especially on such a pretty day.




Then we all hit Kyobo bookstore, a really fabulous bookstore that also sells lots of gifts, stationary, music, dvds, etc. After we were done there, the other couple and the second guide ended up splitting off at that point to go do their own thing since this was their first time in Seoul.

So Yuri took us around for the rest of the day. We walked along this interesting new canal/stream that they recently built through Seoul, walked around Namdaemun market, and checked out what has become of the famous Namdaemun gate that sadly got burned down by a crazy old man and is currently undergoing restoration.







At that point we were starving and ended up at a tiny little restaurant trying budae-jongol for the first time ever. It was a very interesting combo of ramen noodles, sausage, ham, and hotdogs in a very spicy broth. Strange, but tasty and cheap, and it sure hit the spot.



After that, we browsed around Myeong-dong and ended up in Insa-dong, one of the hippest, coolest areas of Seoul, and found a place to sit and drink coffee. It was getting pretty late at that point, so we decided to call it a day...we were pooped out.



After we got back to the hotel, we received such a lovely surprise. I had mentioned to Yuri that I was looking for Hangul fridge magnets and we weren't sure where to look for them. Well, I got a knock at the door and it was a hotel guy delivering a gift from Yuri...Hangul fridge magnets! I'll definitely need to get her email from Holt so I can thank her. They're exactly what I was looking for.




Well, we had planned on meeting Chi-Yong tonight, but we are so tired from being out in the cold all day, and I think the jet-lag is starting to catch up with us. John's currently zonked out as I write. So tomorrow, our plan is to meet Chi-Yong and head over together to the foster family's place to meet the rest of the family and Jin-Ri. It'll be so much fun to see Jin-Ri in her familiar home setting where she's totally comfortable, playing with all her toys and crawling and standing for us. We can't wait!

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!

We're here!

Well, after about 24 hours of travelling, we finally made it to our hotel! From Atlanta, it was one very long 15-hour flight, but we can't complain. We were able to lay back and stretch out, watch movies and tv, and relax all the way there, so it wasn't too bad. Our plan now is just to go downstairs and enjoy some Korean food (over here, they just call it food) and catch up on our sleep. We meet Jin-Ri tomorrow morning at 10:00 am!

Korea here we come!

We're sitting in one of the executive lounges in Atlanta waiting for our flight to Seoul to start boarding. We got up at 4:30 am, left the house around 5:30 am, got to the airport around 6:30 am, left Cleveland on-time at 7:25 am, and arrived in Atlanta around 9:00 am. By the way, the Atlanta airport is pretty awesome. Anyway, it feels like it's already been a long day, but we're just getting started. I'll post again when I get a chance.

8 months old today

Jin-Ri turned 8 months old today! It's been so amazing to watch her grow and develop over these past 3 months since we've been matched. We're so thankful that her foster family has enabled us to get to know her through these videos, pictures and e-mails, and more importantly, that we'll have so much to tell her about this part of her life.

Aqua Girl

We've been wondering what Jin-Ri has been up to the last few days while we've been busy making plans. Well, we received this adorable video of Jin-Ri today. She's just fascinated by this aquarium and loves watching the little fish. Make sure you have your sound up, because she's being very talkative.

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So excited!

Hard to believe that in just 4 days, we'll be on a plane on our way to Korea to meet our daughter! It's hard to put into words what that feels like, so at the moment, I feel a bit tongue-tied. This weekend, we'll be cramming to finish getting the house ready, buying last minute stuff for our trip, and trying to figure out what to pack to make Jin-Ri as comfortable as possible on her long journey. Little does she know what's about to happen...

Here are a few pictures you haven't seen yet. Her foster family took Jin-Ri out for a little winter trip a few weeks ago. Her foster mom has her all bundled up at the seaside.



And here she is looking too cute in her carseat.

Dancing Queen

We received this funny video of Leah dancing while she's watching the TV. She starts when she hears music and stops when the music stops. She is certainly mesmerized by the TV. And she's also discovering her voice and loves making loud screeching noises. I think we're going to need to get some ear plugs!

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