Seoul....
Hello Everyone!
Our time in Korea--which has been absolutely excellent--is coming to an end.
Last time we wrote, we had just arrived in Kyongju, in anticipation of a good time there. We were right, and the city and surrounding area turned out to be really cool. Kyongju was the capital of the Korea's Silla dynasty for about one thousand years, beginning around the beginning of AD times. Consequently, the area is peppered with many (hundreds) of above-ground, hill-covered royal tombs and huge Buddhist temples. The tombs just look like big mounds in the ground (see photos), but the temples are very cool. We spent one particularly interesting day in Kyongju visiting the Pulgoksa Temple and the Grotto, which is a huge carving of Budda inside a small cave, 3k up the hill from the Temple. We also bussed to the southeast sea coast from Kyongju, where we saw some fishing and tasted squid jerky...same texture as all other jerky, but the taste is quite strong, with a fishy kick.
The accomadation in Kyongju was also neat...Amy woke up in the middle of the night with a cockroatch crawling on her arm. Needless to say, she was pretty stoked about it. On the good side, the proprieter of the hostel is an 80-year-old fitness buff who cycles, runs, lifts, and inline skates every day and looks like he's 60. Amy and Katelyn can attest to his "good shape" because they happened to see him naked in the middle of the hall while walking into the hostel one day. Yes, a little weird, but he was just on the way to the shower (plus, it's his house, too). Overall, people seem to be very healthy here, even through their old age. Walking is very popular, especially early in the morning (I saw a ton of people strolling up the the Seoul Observatory Tower this morning at 5:30).
From Kyongju, we took a train to Seoul, where we spent three nights. Seoul is a huge city, and comes complete with all of the diversity, wealth, poverty, ugliness, and beauty of any big city. Katelyn liked the fast pace there, and we did some shopping in the Itaewon marketplace. Our favorite restaurant was the pita place, where we actually found a bit of fresh greens for the first time on the trip.
Sightseeing in Seoul consisted primarily of a tour to the DMZ, or DeMilitarized Zone, between South and North Korea. This was a neat place to go, especially in light of the current situation, and it was particularly interesting to go into a tunnel that North Korea built with the intent of potentially sneaking thousands of soldiers all the way to seoul for a surprise raid. The tunnel is one of a few first discovered in 1978.
We spent one day visiting the Sun Ru Wan Babies' Home, an orphanage in Seoul. We finally found the orphanage after a three-subway, two-taxi, three-hour wild goose chase that took us through the biggest fish market on earth (two-foot crabs, thousands and thousands of fish, 8-foot octopus) and finally to a bank where the only English-speeker--the manager--took 15 minutes out of his day to maquest the situation for us (the people here are unbelievably nice and helpful!), capped off by Amy and Katelyn laughing at me for trying to calibrate my watch compass by spinning circles in a crowded bazaar...all of this after we made our way to the WRONG children's home, which turned out not to be an orphanage at all. When we did reach the correct orphanage, the manager spent about 30 minutes looking for Katelyn's records, ignoring our pleas that she had never actually been there and that we only wanted to go in and play with the kids. Once the message got through, we soon found ourselves in a room with nine great one-year-olds, holding, feeding, playing, and trying to provide some needed love. This was a great experience, and some of the most rewarding time spent so far.
As you may know, one primary purpose for the trip was for Katelyn to hopefully meet her birth mother for the first time. This dream came true yesterday, and the meeting exceeded our greatest expectations! Soon Yee, Katelyn's birth mother who she had never met, arrived to meet us at the adoption agency with her mother and four sisters. As you can image, the meeting (assisted by a translator) was extremely emotional. It was also wonderful, and everyone was happy to be there. We talked at the agency for about two hours, and then continued on to have dinner with the family at a mall inside the Seoul World Cup Stadium. This was a huge event for Katelyn (and the rest of us!), and we were so glad it went well. Katelyn plans to keep in touch with Sun Yee via email, and hopes to learn to speak Korean before returning to visit the family, which lives in Cho'nan, about two hours south of Seoul.
We're back at Incheon now, where we'll spend the night before flying to Thailand tomorrow. Where will we go there? Well, we're not really sure. Please email if you have any suggestions.
We'll be in Thailand until Nov 4, and then back to NZ.
Our time in Korea--which has been absolutely excellent--is coming to an end.
Last time we wrote, we had just arrived in Kyongju, in anticipation of a good time there. We were right, and the city and surrounding area turned out to be really cool. Kyongju was the capital of the Korea's Silla dynasty for about one thousand years, beginning around the beginning of AD times. Consequently, the area is peppered with many (hundreds) of above-ground, hill-covered royal tombs and huge Buddhist temples. The tombs just look like big mounds in the ground (see photos), but the temples are very cool. We spent one particularly interesting day in Kyongju visiting the Pulgoksa Temple and the Grotto, which is a huge carving of Budda inside a small cave, 3k up the hill from the Temple. We also bussed to the southeast sea coast from Kyongju, where we saw some fishing and tasted squid jerky...same texture as all other jerky, but the taste is quite strong, with a fishy kick.
The accomadation in Kyongju was also neat...Amy woke up in the middle of the night with a cockroatch crawling on her arm. Needless to say, she was pretty stoked about it. On the good side, the proprieter of the hostel is an 80-year-old fitness buff who cycles, runs, lifts, and inline skates every day and looks like he's 60. Amy and Katelyn can attest to his "good shape" because they happened to see him naked in the middle of the hall while walking into the hostel one day. Yes, a little weird, but he was just on the way to the shower (plus, it's his house, too). Overall, people seem to be very healthy here, even through their old age. Walking is very popular, especially early in the morning (I saw a ton of people strolling up the the Seoul Observatory Tower this morning at 5:30).
From Kyongju, we took a train to Seoul, where we spent three nights. Seoul is a huge city, and comes complete with all of the diversity, wealth, poverty, ugliness, and beauty of any big city. Katelyn liked the fast pace there, and we did some shopping in the Itaewon marketplace. Our favorite restaurant was the pita place, where we actually found a bit of fresh greens for the first time on the trip.
Sightseeing in Seoul consisted primarily of a tour to the DMZ, or DeMilitarized Zone, between South and North Korea. This was a neat place to go, especially in light of the current situation, and it was particularly interesting to go into a tunnel that North Korea built with the intent of potentially sneaking thousands of soldiers all the way to seoul for a surprise raid. The tunnel is one of a few first discovered in 1978.
We spent one day visiting the Sun Ru Wan Babies' Home, an orphanage in Seoul. We finally found the orphanage after a three-subway, two-taxi, three-hour wild goose chase that took us through the biggest fish market on earth (two-foot crabs, thousands and thousands of fish, 8-foot octopus) and finally to a bank where the only English-speeker--the manager--took 15 minutes out of his day to maquest the situation for us (the people here are unbelievably nice and helpful!), capped off by Amy and Katelyn laughing at me for trying to calibrate my watch compass by spinning circles in a crowded bazaar...all of this after we made our way to the WRONG children's home, which turned out not to be an orphanage at all. When we did reach the correct orphanage, the manager spent about 30 minutes looking for Katelyn's records, ignoring our pleas that she had never actually been there and that we only wanted to go in and play with the kids. Once the message got through, we soon found ourselves in a room with nine great one-year-olds, holding, feeding, playing, and trying to provide some needed love. This was a great experience, and some of the most rewarding time spent so far.
As you may know, one primary purpose for the trip was for Katelyn to hopefully meet her birth mother for the first time. This dream came true yesterday, and the meeting exceeded our greatest expectations! Soon Yee, Katelyn's birth mother who she had never met, arrived to meet us at the adoption agency with her mother and four sisters. As you can image, the meeting (assisted by a translator) was extremely emotional. It was also wonderful, and everyone was happy to be there. We talked at the agency for about two hours, and then continued on to have dinner with the family at a mall inside the Seoul World Cup Stadium. This was a huge event for Katelyn (and the rest of us!), and we were so glad it went well. Katelyn plans to keep in touch with Sun Yee via email, and hopes to learn to speak Korean before returning to visit the family, which lives in Cho'nan, about two hours south of Seoul.
We're back at Incheon now, where we'll spend the night before flying to Thailand tomorrow. Where will we go there? Well, we're not really sure. Please email if you have any suggestions.
We'll be in Thailand until Nov 4, and then back to NZ.
posted by Amy and Trav at 4:40 AM
1 Comments:
Keep posting the updates, they keep a worldy outlook from my windowless cubicle.
Brian Landis
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