Korea--Day 5 (Wednesday, June 27)

I usually try to blog the day before I go to bed, while it's still fresh in my mind, but this day was too much, and I just went straight to bed.  Now it's 2 a.m. (I have been awake at 2 a.m. every night we've been here), and I'm feeling like I can at least get started on yesterday's blog. Every day is so full; it's hard to keep up, but I don't want to forget any of this amazing trip.

I started the day with a cold kimchi pancake and some fruit.  Breakfast of champions!  Sarah took her own won (Korean currency) and walked by herself to a bakery down the street to buy us all muffins. I never thought we'd let our kids go out in this big city by themselves, but having seen for ourselves that it's safe, we've let the kids stretch their wings, both by themselves and with their friends. They've been quite capable and responsible, letting us know where they are, maneuvering the streets, and getting back on time. Plus, we can track them with the Life360 app we all have on our phones. There was this one time where we weren't entirely sure where Sarah was, but it turned out fine.

Anyway, the first item on our itinerary today was a tour of Gyeongbok Palace, which, to be honest, I thought would be boring.  Instead, it was very interesting. On the way to the palace, our guide pointed out the Blue House, which is the Korean equivalent of our White House. Here's the bad picture I got of it as we were going by:

 We arrived in time for the changing of the guard ceremony. They beat this huge drum, and there's all kind of pomp and circumstance.

 Then you could take pictures with the guards.

 The inside of the palace.

 Noah and his buddies Jae and Drew.

 I took so many pictures at the palace complex, because it was all so beautiful and interesting, but I've whittled it down to these few for the blog.

 Old palace building nestled right in with modern skyscrapers.

Our guide, Mrs. Oom, is just the most delightful and adorable woman you'd ever want to meet. She's a taskmaster, keeping us moving ("pali, pali!" which means hurry up), and she tells such funny stories. You can tell she is so proud of her country and happy to teach us about it. Have I mentioned she's in her 70s? She scurries around, climbing over rocks and squatting on the ground for group pictures. She climbed Namsan Mountain way faster than I did. She's probably holding that sign upside down on purpose. It's the kind of thing she'd do.

 Our group had lunch at this bibimbap shop.

 Mung bean sprout soup. It was cold and mostly just sprouts in water. I didn't enjoy it.

The famous bibimbap. "Bap" means rice, and "bibim" means "mixed together", so bibimbap is a bunch of stuff (usually vegetables, egg, meat) all mixed together with rice and topped with spicy gogugang sauce.  Mine was just vegetables and rice.

The thing on the left was supposed to be a scallion pancake, but I found out it had hidden octopus in it, because when I bit into it, a tentacle came slithering out. I stopped eating.

Now we come to the part that is hard to blog about, because it was so intensely emotional, and I'm still processing it.  The thought of blogging it last night is what sent me to bed early. This is the Doori Mothers' Home, run by the Salvation Army, in a poor part of the city.  I thought we were just taking a tour and wasn't prepared with enough tissues for what was to come.  They herded us into a room with young girls, some of whom were pregnant, some with babies up to two years old. This is a home for unwed mothers that helps them by training them to get jobs and providing childcare so they can work until they can get on their feet and live on their own with their children. In Korea, having a child out of wedlock is a shameful thing, and these girls are shunned by society and even by their families. So if they choose to parent, they have little chance of ever getting married, and they struggle financially because employers fire them if they find out they're unwed mothers.
Anyway, we were in the room with these girls, and I positioned myself closest to them, hoping I'd get a chance to hold a baby. I had studied and practiced how to say, "May I hold your baby?"and was ready to pounce when I saw the opportunity.  The girls had made gifts for all of us, so when it came time to present them, they were juggling the babies and the gifts, and I seized my opportunity.  "May I hold your baby?" netted me this precious little thing:

Sometimes holding a baby (especially a Korean baby!) is enough to start the waterworks, but not this time.  I just relished the feeling of his warm little body breathing in my arms and his soft hair and perfect chubby cheeks. I prayed for him and blessed him and tried not to think about the hard life he might have ahead of him.
One of the workers at the home was giving a speech that I was trying to listen to, and one of the mothers spoke about when the Doori home helped her when her daughter was born 8 years ago. Now she's living independently with her daughter and working to support them.
Then it got real. The girls wrote down questions they wanted to ask us and our kids, as some of them are right now trying to decide whether to parent their babies or make an adoption plan for them.  Lives could be changed by our answers. You could feel the heaviness of that burden in the room.  How do we express to these teenagers how much we love our children and how thankful we are to have them?  I pictured them as my kids' birthmothers and what I would say to them. In the end, I didn't say anything, because I was too busy crying, but thankfully, some of the other parents in our group spoke eloquently about our feelings towards our kids and towards their birthmothers. The first question the girls asked was directed at our kids: "Are you happy?" That's all.  They just want to know, if I let someone else raise my child, will he be happy?  I didn't want to look at my kids (who were sitting across the room), but I had to know. When I saw them both nodding, the tears really flowed.  The girls asked how the kids feel about their adoptive parents, and one kid in our group bravely stood up and said how much he loves his parents.  This exchange went on for a painfully long time, and even then, the girls didn't get all their questions answered. They're still wrestling with the big question: Is it better for my child to grow up poor with no father in Korea with his birthmother or to be adopted by two parents in another country?  I don't know the answer to that, but I'm thankful that because my kids' birthmothers became mothers, I became a mother.
I was really glad when they called a halt to the discussion time, because I was so emotionally drained.  We presented our gifts and were taken on a tour. When we got to the children's playroom (the daycare area where they are cared for while their mothers work), we were encouraged to go in and play with the kids.

It was so fun and made my heart happy.

I felt relieved when we left there, because, since our orphanage tour was cancelled, this was the last emotional thing we had to do. The rest of the trip is just sightseeing and fun.
The next stop was a crazy cultural experience: Dongdaemun Market.

 This is a huge covered outdoor space spanning four city blocks, just jammed with people and all kinds of stuff for sale: textiles, food, souvenirs, etc.

 Unusual, pretty beans

Some kind of bugs for sale.

We were told that the bus would come back in 2 hours and we could take that back to the hotel, or if we wanted to leave sooner or stay longer, we could walk back, take a taxi, or ride the subway. We debated what to do about the kids, who wanted to wander freely with their friends and their won.  We didn't think it was a great idea, but we told them to make sure they were back for tonight's talk times (more about that later) at 7:00, told them their transportation options, and let them go. Noah went off with friends, and Sarah took off into that massive market by herself.  Mike and I bought a few little things and decided to go back to the hotel. We were going to walk, but when we came out of the market, we were on the opposite side of where we thought we were (it's a twisting maze in there), and there was a subway entrance right there, so we decided this would be a good time to try to figure out the subway. That was a challenge, let me tell you!

  It took both our brains, some trial and error, and a little help from an old Korean woman, but we finally ended up....well, not quite where we expected to be, but close enough that knew where the hotel was and could walk there.We ended up getting back only 15 minutes before the bus (which our kids were on), but now we can say that we did the subway.

Then we had talk time, which is where we meet in a room and debrief about our feelings and experiences, highlights and surprises.  The parents meet in one room, Sarah's age group in another, and Noah's age group had their own meeting.  I would love to hear what went on in their groups, but neither kid was very forthcoming.  I wonder what's going on their hearts and minds, but I suspect it will gradually come out over the next few weeks after we get back home.