Korea--day 3 (we lost a day crossing the international date line, so there is no day 2)

Monday, June 25, 2018
Let's start with a story about Noah today.  He went to bed last night and slept just long enough to wake up jetlagged and confused. He thought he was late for breakfast so went running out of the room barefoot (fortunately did have clothes on) and ran to the elevator. The elevator won't run without a room key, so that's the point where he realized that he was locked out. He knocked but we were all sleeping (happened to be during the 2 hours I slept the whole night). He thought we were all at breakfast without him. He finagled his way into the elevator with a Korean man who spoke to him in Korean. Noah thinks he was commenting on the fact that he didn't have shoes on. He went to the lobby and asked the guy at the desk where breakfast was. The guy told him second floor, so Noah took the stairs up to the second floor.  This was about midnight.  Obviously, there was nobody having breakfast, and Noah was confused.  He took the stairs back down to ask for an extra room key from the guy who had just told him where breakfast was. Thankfully, the guy spoke English and gave him a replacement key. Noah didn't sleep after that. He spent lots of time researching bidets. He really wants one.

When actual morning arrived, we all went down for breakfast. Mike and Sarah had slept a lot...Noah and I almost none. Breakfast was different, that's for sure. The choices included things like fermented squid, fried rice, bean curd salad, various kinds of kimchi, and oatmeal cooked with so much water and for so long that it looked like this:

This is what I ended up eating:

I should have quit while I was ahead, but there were these mysterious little styrofoam boxes.  I asked our Korean guide what they were, and she didn't know.  I was overcome with curiosity. That cute little box contained the nastiest thing I have ever had in my mouth.

Slimy looking beans and two sauce packets.  I dove my fork into the beans, and when I lifted it out, the slime stretched from the box to the fork.  I lifted the fork way up high, and the slime just kept stretching.  I put it in my mouth anyway.  It tasted like something that had rotted weeks ago.  A wave a nausea hit me, and breakfast was over. We had an orientation meeting, and then we parents had a meeting while the kids had a separate get together. It was informative and emotional, talking about adoption issues.

Then it was off to Seoul Tower, at the top of Namsan Mountain.  We walked up a steep slope and were rewarded with good views of the sprawling city.  It wasn't a perfectly clear day (a little hazy) but we could still see a lot.

 Sarah and her new friend Grace 

Noah and new friends Jae and Drew

 

 

 

The view from the bathroom!

This is a picture of what it looks like at night.  Mike and I had talked about going back tonight to see it in the dark, but he ended up going to bed at 6 p.m., and I'm way too tired to climb that hill again.

Then we went to lunch at a bulgogi place downtown.  I got bee bim bop with no meat.

 Noah and his buddies at the restaurant.  

We were thirsty after Namsan Mountain, so we poured what looked like water out of those silver pitchers.  Jack (the kid next to Noah) and I took a big swig and immediately looked at each other and said "That is NOT water."  Sarah said it tasted like sticks, which is pretty accurate.  I didn't drink any more until I had an emergency: I took a big bite of something unidentifiable, which turned out to be a jalapeno.  At that point, I chugged the stick water and was thankful for it.

 The bulgogi pot was right in front of me. The burner control was right by Noah. A Korean woman came along and turned the burner up high, and this pot in front of me started steaming and boiling, and I was already hot and sweaty.  At one point, the pot started making a sound like locusts were being cooked in it.  Noah eventually realized that his knee was pushing the igniter button.

There's my bee bim bop with gogujang sauce, which is darn hot.

After we were done eating, we had a little time to walk around downtown before our next event.  Mike and I found a spring that fed a little stream that the sidewalk was built around, and the little stream flowed into a fountain and eventually became a big stream, or maybe a river. It was pretty cool having the water right in the middle of the street in the middle of downtown. 

Our next event was a cooking class where we learned how to make kimchi.  Koreans are crazed about kimchi. They must have it at every meal, even breakfast.  I've tried and tried to like it, but pickled, fermented cabbage is really just not my thing. But I was still interested in learning how to make it.

 Getting his pink apron. I'm proud of him for participating.

 

 That's Mrs. Oom tying Noah's apron. She's our Korean guide. She's in her 70s and is still a very beautiful woman.  We love her funny stories too.

 See how my eyes are barely even open?  I am soooo tired.

 Our instructor is teaching us about the Korean radish.

 Noah is laying the cabbage.

I'm really proud of Sarah for trying it.  Mike also tried it in a high pressure situation.  Mrs. Oom rolled up a whole cabbage leaf with Korean radish, watercress, spicy red pepper, garlic, ginger,etc.and held it out to Mike saying, "You try!" And as if that in itself wasn't enough pressure, there were TV cameras on him, because a TV station was doing a story about our group.  The big stud popped that whole thing in his mouth and even managed to say how good it was while he was trying not to puke it up.  Noah was duly impressed.

We made lots and lots of kimchi.  It will be donated to the home for unwed mothers that we'll be visiting on Wednesday, which reminds me of the very disappointing news we got this morning: we will  not be able to visit the orphanage that we were planning to visit in Busan next week. :(

 Next stop: the rice cake museum.  Another unique Korean fascination. 

An entire museum (two floors!) dedicated to rice cakes.

Next, we went to Hanok Village, which has hilly streets lined with traditional old Korean houses.

 Vehicles drive right up on the sidewalks, and people walk in the streets.  We just try to get out of the way when a vehicle is coming up behind us.

 This guy was selling produce out of his truck in Hanok Village.

 Noah and his harem.  People can rent hanboks (traditional Korean clothing) to wear while walking around in Hanok Village. 

That's it for today.  I have to sleep.