DMZ

Monument in honor
Mines are still around

Kevin at freedom bridge



Ribbons of hope

Look closer to the billboard... It houses ammo to blow the bridges into Seoul in case of an invasion!!

MJ - Our DMZ tour Guide

Tunnel to DMZ

Pic of Me outside the DMZ... Behind me is a sculpture of Korea being reunited.

South Korean Flag (notice barb wire)

Sculpture

Went to the DMZ on Sat. Morning. Very Cool and sobering. Thinking of all those people who died and seeing only a dividing line to keep each other apart is tough. They compared the DMZ to the great wall of china. They said like the berlin wall, great wall, we have the green wall. It is a sanctuary for animals and birds. The nice thing now is the transportation link between North and South. Trains and cars can go to and from with certain permission.

Another few links about the DMZ are:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/12/19/korea.dmz/index.html

http://www.dmzforum.org/aboutus/our_mission.php

Namdaemun Market

Pork

Shopping

Market Street

ABOUT- Namdaemun Market
Named for its nearby namesake of Namdaemun (Great South Gate) and located near the downtown area, one of Korea's largest wholesale markets covers over 10 acres. It is filled with over 1,000 shops, stalls, retailers, street vendors, and has several department stores nearby. Here you can find clothes, shoes, fabrics, tableware, flowers, vegetables, ginseng products, toys, and watches. Under Namdaemun-no (the main street to the north of the market) is an extensive underground arcade. Although many of Namdaemun's shops are within the buildings that make up the area, the most colorful aspect of the market is the group of street vendors that setup in the alleys and walkways between the buildings. Wholesalers operate from midnight to 6:00 a.m., and retailers are open from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Although most retailers close their stores on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of each month, many street vendors operate stalls in the alleys. Due to its location near downtown and the convenient bus service to and from Itaewon, many foreigners visit here. Most of the vendors can speak a few words of English or Japanese, but you will generally need an interpreter for any intense bargaining. Because many shops are willing to take non-Korean currency, there is also a thriving black market for money exchanging, with rates generally a little better than those of banks. Should you decide to exchange money this way, take great care not to get ripped off.

I bought presents today... What a cool market... There is everything you could imagine!

Tour Day in Seoul

Started off this morning and had breakfast at the hotel. Wow.. I ate a very traditional Korean breakfast and used my chopsticks!... I am getting better every time I used them. Below are pics but our tour guides were great. They were volunteers from Holt. Wait... Mi an was but she brought her boyfriend with her. They were fun to hang with for the next 6 plus hours. We started off from our subway at the Coex Mall/World Trade Center to go to the Main Palace. That was neat as we watched the changing of the guard and toured the grounds. After that we went for some real nice Korean food. I had the octopus (spicy dish) while the kids ordered the Spicy Bulgogi (beef dish). My brother ordered the vegetable pancake (Very tasty). Well, the way the meal works is that it is a social meal. You eat your soup, fix the rice in your bowl and then you share the entire table until you cannot eat anymore! The spice kept you eating your rice. The neat thing is that they poured hot water in the sticky rice bowl to get the crusty rice from the bottom. Mi An said it had a different flavor. I compared that to brownie edges (a treat?). We ate, laughed, and got to know each other.

We shopped around that area but then I asked to go to the big outddor market to get gifts. OMG was that market large. You cannot see the entire market in a day. Saw an outdoor food vendor selling something that looked interesting. Mi An asked me if I wanted to eat it as she laughed. Then she told me it was pupa.. uggh... pre-caterpillars??? Grubbs??? nada.. was not going to happen! Anyway, were were thoroughly entertained by the characters there. The kids got us some decent bargains and then we needed to let them go. We were so tired.
These guides were unbelievable. They were going to stay with us as long as we wanted them. Actually, we just ended up giving them money for a date night out like the movies and popcorn. That got them to go as they were giving up their whole day volunteering. Felt kind of bad keeping them that long. But before they left us, they made sure we got on the right subway train! The Koreans here are such beautiful people!!!!!

Pics:

Police...They were shocked to get their pics taken!

I Drank Sweat!

Tour Guide at the Palace


Guard at Palace!

Tour guides... Mi An and Mon!!

Our Hotel Coex Intercontinental

First Meeting!

Well, we got up well before the wake up call. Skyped the family back home and proceeded to the subway. We got to the correct station in hapjeong but went out the wrong exit and then all went awry. After the previous night's tour, I thought we would just walk up the exit and oila there is the Holt office. Not so... If you are reading this and will be travelling soon, just know which number exit you need to depart from. It is #7 ... not any other.... And believe me... if you get off of any other, you will be lost. We got lost. Had to take a cab and get re-directed.

But what a visit!... I can only say in words how precious it was to meet Bok-hyeon. We connected right away. He absolutely LOVES cars. He could care a less about the stuffed Mickey. He had the fire engine we got at our local toy store. He keeps it with him everywhere.

I learned that his name is pronounced Poke he yanna. He will not even recognize Bok (american name). But he was AWESOME.

He held my hand. Kissed me, and played with me. I know he knows me as the pics sent ahead were so so so important. I am anxiously awaiting Monday to get him and I know he will be a bit startled as he will leave his foster mom for good. She was wonderful.!!!! Holt did such a nice job in the transition.

Pics above has his foster mother Eun Mi! She was so pleasant!!!!.. What a great mother to Bok-Hyeon!

Off We Go!

What a whirlwind trip! If you thougt flying to California was long, wait till you fly to Seoul. I started off the journey in Orlando. Said a tough goodbye to my wife and daughter and left for the airport via a shuttle from the villages at 7 AM. I was up at 5:30 AM with the sound of the greens mower on hole number one outside the house. My flight left at 11 AM and so I had visited the Delta Skyclub for about an hour. The flight was excellent to Detroit. I met Kevin at the gate and we switched seats to the bulkhead. It provided more leg room. More inportantly, it was next to the bathroom and kitchen. We met this teacher from Ohio named Rob and he was headed for Thailand to meet some friends for his Spring Break. We enjoyed one another's company and passed the time. I will post some pics of the flight as we flew from Detroit north over our home in Traverse City and then Northwest over Alaska and around Russia's coast to Narita-Tokyo Airport. What a long, long, long, flight. I only slept about a half hour. Was extremely exausted but had one more leg to go.

We landed in Japan and waited about an hour and a half as we had to go through security prior to getting in the gate area. Once again, we went with the bulkhead seating. The plane was an airbus 330 and it had leather seats and they gave us sushi for a meal! Delicious! I ate Kevin's. Maggie, I think it was all vegetables. Yummy!

We landed in Seoul and had to wait through Customs. This was about 11 PM Seoul time (13 hours ahead of EST). We thought, hey great, here is Mr. Lee from Holt to pick us up. Nope, after calling him Mr. Lee for about 15 minutes, I saw his name badge. It was Mr. Saika. He was nice but a very tired driver. He commented on the distance to our hotel. He said we have an hour drive from the airport. Uggh... So on the way from the airport, the toll roads were beautiful. Night time in Seoul was foggy and the roads were a bit damp. Anyway, we were talking about Seoul and then I pointed out that we may need to stop as Mr. Saika did not see the two car accident blocking the road. They were smashed up good. We think they were racing and rubbed the other out as these two cars were extremely expensive. The doors opened up like lamborghinis (sp?). We slowed down and Mr. Saika woke up. He had been driving since 7 AM.

We talked about the holt site and he drove us past the offices so we could find them via the subway. It worked to a small extent! See next post. We then talked about the famous fish markets and so he just stopped on the highway and backed up to park the van outside the market. Remind you that cars were going 45 mph past us. He got out and walked us to the market. Pics posting soon (Kevin's Camera).

After being amazed at the site of 100,000 sq. feet fish market, we went to the hotel Checked in and then went to finish the night with a drink on the top floor! Packed and got ready for the next day to go see Bok.

Korean Itinerary

I fly out Tuesday from FLA (yes, during my spring break) to Detroit to meet my brother (travelling buddy) and then to Tokyo and then to Seoul. I leave at 11 am and arrive their time at 10:30 PM the next Day! Yikes

Pricelined the hotel and I hope it worked... 5 star hotel at a 3 star price! YEA

I wrote Delta a complaint note: without getting into it a great deal, the delay on getting to purchase my tickets was ungodly. I spend more time on hold and no one told me what to do or bring in order to get the tickets. Folks, a travel agent would have taken care of it. I am a bit stubborn on this as my flight costs (ones that I got) were $1100 cheaper per ticket for my round trips than the agents. I am thankful for their honesty in saying that they could not match my costs. The one way I got was $883 and they could not touch that. My complaint to Delta was that they needed to do better guidance on telling me what I needed to do in order to get the adoption rate. I.e. bring in the I-171 form with a formal letter from Bethany. It took two days to do this but it all worked out! Whew...

Got Skype all set to communicate with family and facebook is all warmed up! See you in Seoul, soon with Pics! YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Travel Call

I started on Monday, March 22nd taking my first day of family leave in order to get things in line. I got a few laughs from folks saying that I was crazy because I did not get a call yet and I could be risking losing pay, etc. I did my homework and realized that I was in the "window" of getting a travel call so I rolled the dice. Wow, was the timing great as at 9:30 AM, my caseworker called and said pack your bags.

What did that mean? I had to now spend the next 5 hours on hold with my airlines that I had already booked a flight with them for Spring Break. In addition, I had already booked Bok's flight to Florida too. Meaning, I had to figure out how to get his money back as I had planned that he would have come much earlier. I got the flights held and waited 24 hours for Holt to approve the flight plan. They want you there within a week after the "call." I could only work out to be there 9 days after the "call." It all seemed to work and Holt has now set an agenda for me.

Look for the next post on getting the tickets... It will be a doozie...

But Bok-Hyeon is now on our radar to see in a very short time! WOO HOO... I hope you all who are reading this get your calls too!

ANCY!

I put in for Family Medical Leave for this Friday, thinking positive. Last evening I emailed the embassy and asked them time lines on processing Visa Interviews. Great response, we hold them as top priority and usually are done in a two day turn around. So, I am really hoping that the paperwork finds them asap. Holt Children's forum had 9 travel calls yesterday and we were not in the pile. :( But let's hope they are doing some business this week!.... Cmon,,, Ring phone ring!

IT CAME!

We received our I171 form which means our I-600 application was approved. This gets sent to the National Visa Center and then sent to Korea. Since the Korean Ministry has already approved Bok for travel and he had his physical, we are only waiting for "the TRAVEL call." Now I am nervous but know that he will be here soon. I am requesting suggestions from you if you are reading this as to what gifts I can gt the foster family....

WAITING

WAITING ON IMMIGRATION NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HURRY PLEASE!