Seoul Day 4: Part 1

Waking up this morning all we could think about was that tonight a little one would be sleeping in here with us.  I want to say we were excited, but I think we were mostly nervous.  The meeting yesterday went so poorly and we were going to have an unhappy child with us for the next 36 hours and THEN travel for almost 24 hours with that child.  We were not brimming with confidence.  Plus we were just so heartbroken for him.  He didn't really know what was about to happen to him and it was just so sad.  He was leaving everything he knew to be with us.  There is so much about adoption that is truly heartbreaking and difficult.  Though the end result is usually a happy family, it's always born from difficult situations and way too many transitions for a baby to have to have gone through!

We were going to Namdaemun Market today.  We figured shopping wasn't going to be easy with a little one in tow so this was our last chance.  We got moving and out the door fairly quickly and grabbed coffee and some breakfast at Angel-in-us Coffee shop. 

 

 

 

 

Angel-in-us coffee shop.  I was a bit stressed out and Brian made me sit and relax.  It was a nice place to do it.

Exit sign at subway and some other public places.

Then we hopped on the subway.  And I took a picture of one of the exit signs, because I want to remember little things like that.  And we headed to Namdaemun.  I have to tell you that I am in awe of the subway.  So clean, things to see and do at each stop, crowded, but I didn't get sick (I often got nauseous on the DC subway) and we often traveled for 45 minutes.  We never had to wait long for a train.  It was so well done!  






We got to Namdaemun and started off with a snack.  :)  Yum!  This was really good.  We ended up buying another toward the end of our time there.  Then we hit the streets.  I had some major shopping I wanted to do.  Hanboks, name chop (completely failed), Korean Air toy plane, Pororo stuff, gifts for friends/family at home, etc., etc. and we only had a few hours before we had to head back to take custody.  Sadly, I didn't get the number of pictures I wanted to because of this. :(  But I have a few.  It poured while we were there so we went underground for lunch and I have a lot of pictures of that.  It was a HUGE market with groceries, make up counters, all kinds of things you could buy, but the pictures are mostly of the food area. :) 

Yummy Snack

This creepy clown was our landmark, when we got to him we knew were where we had been before. :) 

It POURED while we were there so we went underground.  Look at this place!  Here is the make up center, but we moved on to yummy food....

Lunch was a bunch of snacks, here are some DELICIOUS meat skewers!

This was Korean-Chinese food - that black bean sauce is delicious. The shrimp fried rice was quite good with it. 

Mandu!

This place was huge - here's the Johnny Rockets inside. Everything else we saw in here was Korean, then there was a Johnny Rockets, it made us laugh.

More food!

Yum!

A pictures of the marketplace.

So we enjoyed this and then came the trip back filled with tons of emotions.  I really felt like I was going to throw up!  My stomach was in knots.  We went to the hotel and changed into our clothes.  We headed to SWS and as we were walking up we saw our friends  A & A (I didn't ask permission to put their names).  A (wife) and I agreed that we both thought we might puke before we got there.  It was so unreal.  I can still imagine how I felt.  Not really how I thought I would feel after all this time waiting.  So nervous, sick, sad, very little of me was excited even though I wanted him so much.  It was very strange.  We walked in through the construction and up the tiny elevator one last time.....