Americans in Korea!

Today was a great day in Seoul. I think we got our bearings and saw much more of the city, maybe a little off the typical tourist path...

But the first thing we did was fill up on american and Korean food in our hotel. Not any day you can have fruit loops and kimchi together! After we ate we headed for Eastern to see babies! Because it was the weekend it was not obvious how to get in, but AAC mentioned that we enter through the guest house door. Once we found it, we entered and saw a lady sitting at a desk to the guest house. She knew very little English (about equal to our Korean). We were trying to ask if we could see the babies and she was not understanding us at all. As a last ditch effort we showed her our Ava pics and she recognized her foster mother, which helped a little. Then we pulled out the "Instant Korean" book and looked up "babies". "Aegi" (aa-ghee) I said and before we knew it we were met by another women and we were holding and feeding BABIES in the nursery!!! They are about 2 weeks old and CUTE!!! It is pretty hard to see all of the babies in the nursery waiting for their forever families.

After leaving the nursery we headed to the subway to get on our way to the Bukhansan National Park. I know, leave it up to us to visit a national park in Seoul! Well the subway was the easy part, but the connection to the bus to get there was not. We have found that figuring out the subway system is easy, but once you get up to the surface street, the confusion starts again... This was no different. Our travel guide says to catch the #120 green bus and all we saw was the #120 blue bus and the signs were all in Korean. We ask a fellow by pointing to the name in the book and he confirmed that #120 was it. So off we went on the "Blue" bus. As we stood on the bus, Leslie noticed a young man next to me that was reading a map and had on hiking boots. She nugged me to speak to him... and thought I should ask, "do you speak English?". He said he did and I pointed to the map he was holding and said, "can we go with you there?" He was very happy to help. We got off the bus and he said we should take a taxi to the park entrance. The travel guide says you can walk, but it is 30 mins. But it also does not say that it is all uphill!!!! No problem riding in a cab... The young man actually paid for our cab fare and asked if we wanted to join him and his friends. We knew that it could be a bad idea because they were experienced rock climbers. We said we were fine on the "easy" path. He seemed disappointed because we think he wanted to show us off to his friends. It is very obvious to us that foreigners (Caucasian) do not visit this area at all, we get a lot of stares. We entered the park and "spoke" to the park ranger for a map. She was very nice. Ok off we went on the mostly uphill all the way climb. It was tough, but very beautiful! Most people were nice and tried to say hi, and the first time we stopped we met a family hiking; mom, dad, and two teenage girls. The father sort of bowed to us, mustard up a "hi" and asked where are you from? We said USA and the daughters giggled and kind of hit each other as if they had a bet going or something. He asked how far we were going? We may have looked out of breath or something because he did not want us to commit to a long hike and run out of daylight. We figured out we were going the same way and we just followed them. It was an amazing hike through the trees and we saw campers and a lot of people! They take this seriously! True to Koreans in Seoul style (insert stereotype) alot were decked out in hiking gear and fashion. After a long hike we made it one of the temples and eatery where hikers stop to eat before they descend the Buhkansan mountain (1 of 3). The family we met asked us to join them and they were very gracious by offering us tomatoes and sandwiches. The older daughter spoke a little english and we managed to exchange information about ourselves. The father is a pastor of a christian church in Seoul and their daughter was teaching herself English. We eventually showed them our pictures of Ava and they were very happy to see why we were in Seoul. The father said "thank you" to us and that could have made us cry if we hadn't dried up all the moisture in our bodies from the hike. We took pictures of all of us and they asked us to email them to the daughter, her email is potatochipxx@xxx.com, funny. They asked if wanted to continue and we declined, it was a long way down... Once we made it down we found the #120 bus and back to the subway. Fun day at the mountain and by the way we saw all the clothes for sale to be a fashionable hiker in Seoul on the way down. It was like a ski resort or something.

We made it back to the hotel and decide to venture out to Iteawon District which is supposed to be a happening night life scene. Iteawon is a mix of all nationalities and races and same sex lovers lane. It was funny, we got off the subway at Iteawon and we saw americans and other races and thought that this must be the place. It was our mission to find Hard Rock Cafe for some american food for once. We walked down the stairs to get to the restaurant and almost busted out laughing at the site we saw. I think all of the americans in Seoul were in this restaurant!!!! Wow, we flock together I guess. Most of the americans were military and their families. By the way, Koreans in Seoul are very nice, americans not so much. No place like home... After we ate we headed down the street and saw a lot of partying and wondered what next. The travel guide mentions Our Place. Why not, we headed up to the terrace and found a nice quiet setting above the city for a couple beers. According to the newspaper, we apparently saw a Korean soap opera star that just came out of the closet? We said that's him!

Well it was a fun packed day and our day to finally meet our little girl is almost here!!! We are glad we can see Seoul first before our meeting her.

Love The Perry's!