Korea Trip

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My Retirement Fund???

A Happy Moment

The kind friend ignores my mismatched pajama socks.

Return to the New Normal

Ty the Exer-Saucer King and his sister, the Dancing Queen. You will note Ty has on some stylin duds. These were inherited clothes and you may recall Marie enjoyed them. It worked on her - one of her favorite songs is "Hail to the Victors."

"Eating" together. I love that Marie has 1) her leotard on 2) a Halloween cup and 3) is using a Silver Lake placemat. I am too tired to recall what meal this was but it must have been Saturday as that is dance class day.

Jim cuddling with the two rug rats. Ty and I have been "sleeping" here on the futon together.


As of Saturday, Marie had carmel corn from Aunty, sugar cookies she made with her Aunt, sugar cookies sent over from a friend, chocolate from Grandma and this, the Big Daddy Lollipop straight out of Wizard of Oz sent from Uncle Jeff. Enough!

We are having ups and downs still. Ty has been to the Dr twice. He is napping well but is not able to sleep at night. He will fall asleep on us if we carry him upright but isn't comfortable lying down. Yet, I can get him to lie down for his nap. Jim reminds me that Marie didn't sleep at night either but it's different. Marie just lay there trying to be with me and had jet-lag and stress. Ty is so tired and wants to sleep but can't. Something is bugging him. We know he is teething; he is a drool machine and his lovely little cheeks are all irritated from the acidic drool. He may or may not have an ear infection. The doctors looked but he has so much hard ear wax built up (not unusual in Asians) that they can't see the ear drum. We need to irrigate his ear with a baking soda mixture for the next few days to clear that up. He spits up pretty regularly and has a hard time swallowing so we are wondering if he has some sort of reflux or gerd. So we will treat him with Prevacid to see if that helps. It really won't hurt. The doctor is going to call us in a few days to check and we go back in Tuesday. We feel very comfortable with this doc. He has been working for 20 years with Korean adoptees and is on the board at the hospital. Everyone loves him. Today at our visit, he told me that before he saw Ty and had just read about him, he was sure that it was all behavioral. Once he looked at him though, he suspected that there may be something more going on. I appreciate his assessing things with a fresh eye and he has a plan of what to do if things don't turn around Tonight Ty took a bath, had a bottle and fell asleep on me right away. I set him down and he has been up and down since then, sleeping for maybe 20 min at a time. I think we will try a car ride as he seemed to like that earlier. So off to do that!

Homecoming

Friends and Fam at the airport

Marie in her PJ's with the "Cody" she made at the mall...thanks Grampa!

First hug my babies shared

All right, you wouldn't look so hot either. I had sweet potatoes on my shirt, formula on my pants and had been in airports and airplanes from Wed 8pm to Thursday 9pm.

So excited about the party!!!

Photos courtesy of (as Marie has started to call him) Uncle Wobby.

Thanks to all who made it to the airport. It was great to be welcomed home with such love. We were also lucky to meet up with family outside the international terminal at O'Hare. Thanks to you guys too! I know others wanted to be there but couldn't; you can see that we were not longing for happy faces to greet us!

While I wait in Narita Airport...

First Day

Up and Down and Up and Down...what a rollercoaster.
I can't take time for a long post but didn't want to leave you hanging.
He is fundamentally a happy boy but came to us with little sleep and hungry. It was a rough first few hours and then he fell asleep for 1 hour. When he woke, we got him to play a little, he creeps and plays beek a boo alot. Jim makes him laugh out loud! Doing so right now! Then we got him to eat and he slept sort-of for the night.

We think he is teething and has either a sinus or ear infection as laying down makes him scream. If he is upright, he is happy. He also has some irritation elsewhere, if you catch my drift. So, we all managed to catch a little sleep.
Leaving for the airport in an hour so must go.
Love, 3/4 of the Whalls

Anyone want to see Ty Ji-Tae???

There he is...in the carrier on his foster-mom's back. This is how he is used to traveling. The first of many changes.

Mama's Boy?


This one is NOT afraid of Daddy.

First few moments together.

Sharing a lunch of Korean Barbeque

**sigh**

He's perfect

We had an amazing hour together. Learned a lot about his routines. He eats anything - shock - and takes 3 one-hour naps. He has had a lot of love from his foster mom and extended family. He has never been in a car seat so that will be fun! He went readily to Jim and liked me too. Had a quick check by the doctor to make sure he can leave the country and, yes, he can. Don't know why a 20+ pound baby needs two bottles in the middle of the night but I can deal with that when we get home, I guess. Unlike Marie, Ty has some serious Mongolian spots. These are darkened areas of the skin that will eventally fade as he gets closer to 10. Right now, it looks like he was hit and bruised along his backside. We go to the doctor Monday and will need to have them documented in case we get falsely accused some day at the beach. Other than that, he is in perfect health. No dry skin, no colds, no ear infections...just lots of smiles. We both were able to coax some smiles from him. He clearly prefers his foster mom but that is how it should be right now. We realize that at some point he is going to go through some grief and loss as he realizes that she is gone. The other wrinkle is that he sleeps on his foster mom. He falls asleep on her chest wtih his head on her shoulder and sleeps right there. So, we will have to transition him to sleeping on his own too. Our dog Cody will be in for a shock when he has to share me.

The visit and doctor check-up lasted one hour. At the end, the foster mom invited us to lunch of Korean barbeque. It was wonderful. We couldn't communicate explicitly but managed to do okay. We had to remove our shoes and sit on the floor around this little table. It was so small that Ty could stand at it. The table had a hole in the middle where they grilled the meat. Ty kept me and the foster mom busy as we kept him away from the white hot coals. Jim and I kept laughing that "the grandmas" would have a fit if they could see this. But we weren't in any position to question the foster mom. It was an amazing lunch spending time getting to know each other and Ty. That hour was worth the cost of the trip, no question. We are so thrilled we could have that opportunity.

After we said goodbye to them we took the subway back into downtown. Spent a great day just walking, shopping, eating food from street vendors. We kept pulling out the camera to look at the pictures again and pinching ourselves thinking about tomorrow.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. We certainly appreciate all the support and love. We do feel very far away so your thoughts are appreciated!

For those of your wondering about the OTHER child, we talked with Marie this morning via Skype. She is great. Our friend Kerry and her daughter Hailey visited Marie Monday afternoon and told us that she is her "happy chipper self." Marie has been treated to the carousel at the mall, a library trip, a trip to the Build-a-Bear store and more sweets than we can imagine. When we talk to her, we can tell she is doing just fine!

Monday's Palace Tour

Monday morning started rough for us. We got up and out the door at the time our driver told us too. (Saturday night we were picked up at the airport by a driver sent from the adoption agency. He gave us directions about Monday morning). He told us to leave the hotel at 9am to be at Holt for the tour 10am. He also gave us a packet of info that contradicted those times. The packet said Tuesday at 9am. The packet had other incorrect info in it so I figured it was an out of date printing. After talking with the front desk, we decided to take a cab to the offices of Holt so we could get dropped off right in front and not figure out the subway. As is custom, the lady at the front desk wrote down the address for us in Hangeul (Korean characters) so the cab driver could read it.

Problem #1: she wrote down the wrong address. We didn't realize this until after the cab left us. Mind you, the building had a lovely banner on it giving directions to the current office. Since this was written in Korean, it did us no good. However, a nice lady passing by gave us directions to the current office.
Problem #2: she and I weren't able to communicate correctly. We tried 3 different streets before we asked the police for help. They drove us to the Holt offices. We were still able to laugh at this point.
Problem #3: the tour was for 9am, not 10. I pointed out that the driver had our name wrong, I should've just assumed that the other info he gave us was wrong too. At this point, that got them looking through their files and realizing, oh yes, they did have the wrong info down for us. Jim and I say it is fine, we can do a tour ourselves. What matters is we didn't screw up meeting Ty. They insist that they will have their volunteer tour guides meet us downtown at the palace.
They help us get onto the subway, holding our hands the entire way to ensure that we don't further screw up.

In short, we make it to one of the palaces without further event. The only situations that arose in the subway was that a 60+ year old Korean veteran kept insisting to Jim that he find a seat and sit down. I think he was afraid Jim would fall on him. Jim wouldn't sit as he didn't want to. The older man kept pointing to all the open seats that Jim could sit in. Finally, a lady sitting next to me moved so that big dumb American would sit down.

Without further events, we met up with our volunteer tour guides. A female high school student who spoke excellent English, a male financial college student who is hoping to go the Miami of Ohio next fall, and a married young woman who wants to teach English to children. We fumbled around the palace and museum with them for a while. They then insisted on taking us shopping. Once we got to the market, I told the girls they were absolutely lovely and we had a wonderful visit and they didn't need to babysit us anymore. They had a lengthy conversation in Korean with the financial student and they left. He insisted that we needed him so he went shopping with us. So we did. I tried to barter with the vendors but he said he would take care of that for me. It was quite comical after a while; we gave in to his attempts at graciousness. After an hour or so, we pleaded exhaustion and went back to the hotel. I took a 2 hour nap; guess waking up at 4am will do that to you.
I think my favorite part of the day was when we got back to the hotel. We noticed a Dunkin Donuts was two blocks down. We practically ran there and had a coffee and some sugar delight. The coffee smelled like HOME!!! I could've bathed in it at this point.
Hopefully things will be a bit smoother this morning. We meet Ty at 10am, assuming we are still alive and not lost.
Some pictures of the day...

There are many, many people living in Seoul...these are the ones we could see from the hotel window.

Old and new, side by side.

One of the palaces rebuilt in the old part of the city.


On a palace tour

Very feng shui with water in front and mountains behind.

Two More Tunnel Pix

The exterior of the ramp...I wasn't exaggerating, was I?

The dorkiest picture of me ever.

Today!!!

Today we meet Ty!
I have been up for an hour now; sitting in the dark while Jim sleeps. I can forget about sleep today.

I will post a longer post in a little bit but just wanted you to know that in 4 hours we meet Ty!

Dinner in Insadong

Jim's yummy dinner-pork and cabbage with a spicy sauce.

My dinner - assorted veggies, fish and stuffs coated then fried (I think)

He's in Insadong too???

You can choose your dinner, if you desire.

Last night, after the DMZ tour, we went to a section of the city called Insadong. It has lots of little shops full of knick-knack stuff. We had some snacks from street vendors that were pretty great. After shopping for a while, we ventured into a restaurant, pointed to items on the menu and prayed it was something we liked. It was pretty good, pretty spicy. The only issue is that the chopsticks are metal and heavy. My right hand is sore from using them. I am still quite jet-lagged. We were up at 4am this morning and now are crashing. Naptime!

More DMZ pics

Howdy all, its Jim, trying my hand at a blog. Juleen started this with the DMZ post below mine, so it would be best to start there.

Here are is an image of the Korean peninsula at night. You'll have to click on it for the full view. The line running east-west just north of the lights is the DMZ.

an interesting signpost.

This was the entrance to the tracks at the train station. To the right, out of the picture, two South Korean MP's were standing at the door.

Here is a view of two monuments. One is to the UN forces in general, the other is to the US forces specifically. One of the men in our group was surprised to discover that it wasn't just a US war.

Here is the fence on the banks of the Imjin river; erected to prevent North Korean infiltrators from swimming into Seoul. These fences line up along the Han too, into Seoul. Our Guide told us that up until 2002, in spots where the North owned the other side of the river bank, both sides would erect speakers which would proclaim how much better it was to be on that particular side.

Also, on the way back into Seoul, she pointed out several 'bridges'. They weren't really bridges, they were structures mined with explosives. The road that takes you from Seoul to the DMZ is the national highway. It goes all the way to Pyongyang. If the North ever invaded, its an easy route for tanks, so they have the structures that they can blow up to block the road and, in her words, 'give us some time'.

It struck me how things seemed simultaneously weird and normal. Our guild told us that the government 'kept some information' about the North and North-South relations so that during more tense times, the people of Seoul wouldn't panic.

She said that South Korea was a nation of 48 million people, and that about 20 million were in Seoul and its metropolitan area.

If you think about that, the majority of Korea's people is within 50 or 60 kilometers of the DMZ and a large chunk of the Korean People's army; the fifth largest army in the world with something like 1.1 million men. For most of the past fifty years the citizens of Seoul have lived as the primary target for that army.

Add to that things like the infiltration tunnels, and the desperate straits of the people in the North.

Its a normal situation to them, but I have to believe only in the sense that this has been the status quo for the past half century.

DMZ

Sunday we had a quick trip up to the DMZ. We were picked up at our hotel and then went around town picking up others. After an hour we headed north to the demilitarized zone.
Seoul is not far at all from the DMZ, about 50-60km or 30-35 miles. Almost immediately after leaving the city, we started seeing barbed wire. There is a river that starts in North Korea and winds down through South Korea. The river is lined with barbed wire fence to keep out any infiltrators from the North. On the other side of the fence, we could see a beautiful river and mountains on the other side. At one point, the mountains went from full of trees to bare. That is when we knew we were looking at the North; they have stripped the trees for firewood. It was a short drive and we had fun chit-chatting with some men from San Fransisco. The guide was a young woman who tried to educate us about the situation in Korea. She was careful to call the DMZ the demarcation line, not a border. A border occurs between 2 countries and Korea is still one. She also explained the armistice as "a break." That the country is just taking a break from the war...for over 50 years. It is still one country. She also talked about the difference in attitude between generations. It has been so long now that the country has been divided, her generation feels no connection to the North. They do not want reunification because of the economic toll it would take on the South. The older generation, however, remembers and has connections to the North. They feel quite different.
It was definately a bizarre feeling. We never felt unsafe (not like it's Gaza) but the military presence is palpable. The barbed wire, the guardposts, the little signs telling you to stay on the roads becaues of landmines, the strict rules - you could feel the tension. What's odd is that our guide has grown up with this and to her, it is the norm. We were very disappointed that we 1) couldn't take pictures of so many things due to security reasons and 2) because our tour was on a Sunday, certain places weren't on the tour, specifically Panmunjon which is the building that straddles the two Koreas. But, Sunday was the only day we could go so at least we were able to do the tour.

Waiting for the others on the tour...wishing Ihad found a Starbucks.

The Freedom Bridge. The last govt-allowed exchange of people from the North to the South was along this bridge decades ago. The bridge leads into the DMZ but the other side is still South Korea. You are not looking at North Korea here.

Signs, pictures, children's art and ribbons posted along the Freedom Bridge in memory of those on the other side.

Jim dwarfing the freaky statue on the edge of the Freedom Bridge

Next, we went to the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel. 4 Tunnels have been discovered by the South Korean government leading from North Korea into South. The tunnels are about 2m tall and 2m wide and designed to move a large number of troops quickly to places where they could infiltrate and attack Seoul. They were found with the help of an engineer who defected to the South. The North denied building them, yet the blast holes from they dynamite are clearly pointed towards the South so you can see which way the tunnel was built. No pictures were allowed in the tunnel. We went down to the 3rd tunnel. You walk down a ramp to get to the tunnel (and unfortunately, you walk back up the ramp too). Imagine the steepest staircase ever and then make it a ramp. Now extend it for 400m downward. 400m doesn't sound like a lot but it was incredibly long when you are walking at an 11degree angle. The picture isn't too scale but it was the steepest incline I have ever walked; that includes Diamond Head and the Great Wall. You must wear a hard hat. A floor was put into the tunnel so people could walk easier. This changed the height from 2m (6feet) to 1.6m. In short, Jim hit his head about 5 times on the granite ceiling and I banged mine twice. The North first denied building the tunnel, then claimed it was for coal mining. However, the walls are obvious granite stone; there is no coal there. Now, the North realizes the South is making lots of money on those tunnels and has said they should be given a cut of the action as they built the tunnels in the first place. The tunnel was very scary. We were warned that you should not go down there if you have an issue with enclosed spaces. It was dark with water dripping on you, not unlike a tomb feeling. At the end is a barrier that the South Korean govt put in place to seal it from the North. There is a window in the steel door that allows you to look at the other, deeper barriers that they built. There are 3 barriers and the deepest ones have landmines embedded as well. Once you reach the end and are a little freaked out, you get to retrace your steps and climb back up to the top. Halfway there I told Jim I was done talking as I had to focus on breathing. We were the first ones to the top. I needed to be out of there.

Then we went to the observatory. This is the highest point at the DMZ. It is not an observatory for stars, I realized. It's sole purpose is to monitor the area. It is staffed by the South Korea army that have been trained by UN Troops. It is a platform that looks out over the DMZ. The DMZ is 4km wide; 2km to the north of the demarcation line and 2km to the south. Within the DMZ is one village in South Korea. The govt subsidizes it - those that live there live tax-free and do organic farming. Their sons are exempt from the mandatory military service requirement. About 450 people live in Unifcation Village. There is an elementary school, a church. Just across from it, on the other side of the demarcation line, is a village on the North Korea side. It is made of impressive buildings to show the South how good it is in the North. It is empty. Both villages have a huge flagspost waving their respective flags. The one on the Northern side is the biggest flagpost in the world. The platform at the observatory looks out over all of this. There was a yellow line that denonted where you could take pictures. To get a really good look at the edge of the platform, you crossed the yellow line. In short, where you could really see things is where you weren't allowed to take pictures. We wanted to take a picture with a South Korean guard but just as we were asking, a bus of Chinese tourist pulled up. He refused saying if the tourists saw that, then all of them would want to take pictures with him and he wasn't about to deal with that. Below is the guard, right on the yellow line, surrounded by the Chinese tourists.

Jim stood right at the edge of the yellow line and lifted the camera up way above his head. Using the zoom, he was able to get some decent pictures. Above the viewing scope on the right, you can see the flagpole on the North Korean side, surrounded by the faux village.

After this we went to Dorasan Station. AB-SO-LUTE-LY Bizarre!!! This is an empty, brand-new train station with cargo depots, inspection posts, ticket booths - everything. It is sitting,waiting, right at the edge of the DMZ. Waiting for reunification, should that occur. The South built it in 2002 when relations were a bit more hopeful with the North. They are anticipating the day when they can link by rail to China and via China, Russia and Europe. There are pictures of the then President of South Korea and President Bush who together "opened" the station. But no trains have yet to leave, obviously.

We then boarded the bus back to Seoul. Jim and I spent a few hours deciphering the map and managed to actually figure things out a little. But that's another post.

My Keyboard is in Hangul...

You know when you see the sunrise in Chicago and then watch it set in Tokyo, it's been a long, long day...

Sunset in Tokyo

Jim at OHare

Too tired to even go in...that's tired!

We made it with just one delay in Tokyo. The flight really wasn't bad. The layover in Chicago was a bit long though. We didn't get to see much of Seoul yet as it was dark and foggy when we arrived. But now we are in our room and ready, oh-so-ready, to crash. Good night from Seoul! And yes, my keyboard has Hangul characters on it. Odd but not as odd as the toilet seat with a heater and bidet built into it.