7-26 Friday Closing time- end of program...

We have free time in the morning so I packed my belongings. we then ate lunch and then we had the closing ceremony.  For the closing ceremony my talent was the traditional Korean bow with my new Belgium friend Eun Jee. The closing banquet and ceremony was today... The banquet was held in Gangnam at a fancy hotel called Riverside. It was buffet style and delicious. The desserts especially were to die for...gelato, tiramisu and cheesecake. Partied hard core last night with the Danes... Going out tonight... Last night with my new 16 friends and holt staff.

Tomorrow I'll be moving to the best western in Incheon and staying there all night.

Can't believe this trip is coming to a close...

7-25 Thursday Gyeong- Buddist temple

I can't believe the trip is coming towards the end. Today in Gyeong-gu we saw a Buddhist temple known as the Bulguksa temple. Here we saw monks and lots and lots of stairs. On the way out we saw piles of stones.
Often in these Buddhist temples you see a symbol that looks like a German Nazi symbol but it isn't in Korea it is known as a manja and is in the opposite direction of the swastika. It is a symbol used by Buddists. It's literal translation is " the letter man" .
The tour guide described it by saying The first use of the Manja dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization that existed over 5,000 years ago. In Sanskirt, the Manja is called Srivatsalksana. And while there are four ways to express this Sanskrit word, the most common is “Srivatsa”, which literally means the shape of sea clouds where hair is curled, overlapped and intermingled. I know, it sounds a bit strange, but in context, it makes a lot more sense. Srivatsa, or Gilsanghwiseon (길상희선) or Gilsanghaewun (길상해운) in Korean, refers to one of the “Samsipisang” (삼십이상), which is just one of the thirty-two marks of excellence that existed on Seokgamoni-bul’s (The Historical Buddha) body. From his head to his toes, the Buddha was covered in these marks. It is a symbol meaning good fortune.
 Then we ate lunch which was buffet style and then we drove back to Seoul. We ate buffet style dinner too!

Now we are back in Seoul... To celebrate being back in Seoul some of us went out to norae bong and a bar called the Ho Bar. This day some of us also met some of Yujin's friends at a beer pong place... Stayed out late...

7-23 and 7-24 Gyeong and Busan

Today 7-23 we left Seoul and the Grand Hilton and drove by tour bus to gyeong-gu city. It's about 4 hours outside of Seoul. We are staying at the Hyundai hotel , generally 2 people to a room. i got to room with a Danish girl Anne Mee. She was really sweet. We viewed lots of historical places. On the tour bus we watched a Korean drama called 'Jewel in the Palace'. It was pretty interesting...

On 7-24 we went to Busan city, only about an hour outside of Seoul. Busan is the second largest port in Korea. We saw  the Busan tower and were able to see a 360 degree view of Busan from it. We ate a buffet style lunch. After lunch we went to haeundae beach and a fishery market. Went shopping at a local market and then we came back to Gyeong-gu. For dinner we ate Bulgogi again :). Busan was a beautiful city. I wish I had taken more photos... I have enough to show you all back home though.

7-22 Root Search day- confusion angst and peace

Today we will visit Holt to view our files... The root search is today as well but unfortunately, my parents did not answer the telegram sent to them. The file here in Korea is exactly like the one I have at home. I was relieved of this since sometimes the file is not the same.

It appears my birth mother received the telegram from the mailman personally herself. Both mom and dad are still living together and probably married now. They no longer live in Daegu. They now live in another district called the Choong Nam province. The city they live in is called Chun-Ahn;it's about one hour away from Seoul.The OB/GYN Partima where I was born in is no longer around.

I took a nap today for 4 hours I am exhausted. Then I went out with some girls to Insadong area for shopping; we spent 3 hours looking around in different shops. It was awesome!!

7-20 and 7-21 Homestay/ church

Our next task of the week was the much anticipated home-stay. I was one of the first to arrive downstairs in the hotel lobby. The social worker Ms.Seol introduced me to my home-stay family and Esther was nearby too.The home-stay family's last name was Choi. I said goodbye to the Holt staff and set off with them(The Choi's). They had only arrived with their domestically adopted daughter Seung Ah. On Saturday evening at 2:00PM my home-stay experience began. I was paired with a nice family who has 3 children; a 2 year old daughter, 14 year old son and 18 year old son. The youngest Seung Ah was adopted domestically through Holt. The family lives about an hour outside of Seoul. the father Taewon speaks English fairly well. He told me to call him Sam chon which means uncle in Korean. Taewon's brother lived closer to Seoul so before going to their home we visited his brother. His brother's name is Jason and therefore, I was to refer to him as Jason. 

To begin the fun we walked around some older streets of Seoul; one place we walked near was the president's house. Here in Korea it's called the blue house. It is like the equivalent of the White House in Washington D.C. to the US president. 

After walking around a bit and drinking our coffees we said goodbye to Jason and his wife.The coffee I had was a green tea latte with almonds in it. We used their bathroom first though since we had an hour drive ahead of us.

Then we drove about an hour away to the home-stay family house.When we arrived at Sam chon's home his other two children were home from school. I was introduced to them.

The two year old Seung Ah was naturally interested in the gift bag I had in my hand do, they opened the gift to satisfy her curiosity. They seemed very appreciative.

 We then went and ate pork for dinner at a local restaurant. Their original plan was to eat sushi but I was disinterested in eating raw fish so they changed dinner plans for me. After eating dinner we returned back to their home. The children decided to stay there.

Sam chon seemed very enthusiastic about taking me to a jjimjalbang( a spa/sauna). I was rather shocked at the nudity of this place even though we were seperated by gender and Sam chon had warned me about this on the car ride there. First you are in a public area where everyone is naked. You take a shower and then get into sauna's of varying   temperatures. Then my home-stay mother paid for me to get a complete scrub down. I cringed at the sight of all the dead skin cells that flaked off my body. After the scrub down you shower again and put on the uniform they supply for you to wear in the sauna room. During the sauna time you eat food and drink drinks like tea or energy drinks. Your head is wrapped with a towel like a sheep's head called "yang meori". The rooms smelt of burning wood and are varying temperatures. Most people sleep when they are in a jjimjalbang. you start in a hit room and then move to a cold room because everything must be bakanced. after this you shower once more and then return into your own personal clothes. After the sauna we came back to home-stay house and I went to bed. I was very relaxed and tired.

7/21 ~The next morning for breakfast we ate bread... Sweet honey bread, red bean bread and bacon, toast and eggs. My host family is not religious so rather than attending church we went shopping in Bundang. This district is where Taewon works as an insurance salesman. I was able to pick up more souvenirs here and then I ate noodles for lunch. They were traditional japanese noodles called udon and I ate rice balls. The home-stay family also graciously bestowed a few gifts to me prior to my leaving their home. They gave me hand-made chocolates( very expensive) and instructed me not to share them with anyone. They also gave me a compilation of Korean music that their 14 year old son downloaded and put onto a USB for my listening pleasure. The last gift was a book called "Dandelion this is how we love you"; written by Neil Park and illustrated by Yoojin Jang. This was an adoptee family story written by adoptees. Taewon says they attend a meeting at Holt once a month with Seung a to go over adoption issues and tribulations.

Then, the home-stay will be over. At 4pm I'll be joining staff member and our house mother YuJin/ Vicki to her church service. The church was an English service and is called Onnuri church. The sermon was on 2 Kings 22. Eating pizza for dinner and then going out ...The club was very crowded for a Sunday night and busy, it appears nightlife here thrives... The club was called NB2 it stands for Noise Basement 2 and had the music blasting, strobe lights going and smoke everywhere. We danced on the noise bar.

Friday 7-19, Saturday 7-20 Taekwondo and Ettiquette

Today we started doing taekwondo... It's like Korea's way if doing karate, we will continue this tomorrow 7-20. We received our own custom made uniforms. the uniform had our national flag on one sleeve and the Korean flag on the opposing sleeve. The teacher Deoksoo Jeon was a Korean adoptee as well. His adoption was domestic though and this made him a wiser man. He has been helping teach taekwondo for this camp now for three years and he is recently married. I am thankful to him for sharing his story and his journey of adoption and the struggles he faced.
We started the day off with warm-up drills of running, flexibility, and stretching... I never realized how out of shape I am till taking this class. We practiced kicking; round kicks, straight kicks and punching with our fists.
The instructor gave us a challenge to break a board the next day to receive a prize. No one's failed yet...
Then we got back onto the red tour bus and went back to the hotel took quick showers and then ate lunch; Korean McDonald's food and tried on the traditional Korean clothes hanbok.

After that we went back onto the bus to go to the Myung Won Cultural Foundation. It was an etiquette class where we were going to learn  how to bow properly make green tea and pour it properly. Sadly, this art form is slowly dying in Korea.The tea was really good. We also did the coming of age ceremony which is when a child turns 20 they receive an adult name. We received our adult names and their meanings with great gratitude.

At the tea ceremony place dinner was served, it was delicious! 

Then we had free time so I went with a group to norae bong or karaoke place called Rock Q.

I also was able to go shopping so I picked up a few things.

7/20~ We woke up to attend taekwondo again. The challenge was becoming a reality, everyone broke their board and we received our prize. It was a black belt with our Korean name engraved on it. For lunch we ate chicken again and we celebrated our Norwegian friend's Tove birthday by eating banana bread.

Thursday 7-18- Korean class, Calligraphy and FOOD...

Today we finished Korean class with Hannah Madeline. She teaches in Hong Kong now. We learned the two number systems; Korean and Sino-Korean. Then we went to Holt post adoption services(PAS to look at the babies and play with them. They were grateful to see the males since they only generally have female interaction throughout the day. We went in three separate groups, my group went first but, most of the babies were sleeping so... sadly I only got to play with one baby. Sadly, these babies cannot be adopted. 
Then we ate lunch... It was chicken today! :) It's a dish called "samgyetang" a ginseng chicken soup. It is very commonly eaten in the summertime. It is a chicken that is filled with rice, ginseng, jujubes, garlic, and ginger. It is closed shut and cooked in broth.
After lunch it was time to head off to calligraphy class. We learned about calligraphy by a famous calligrapher here in S. Korea, Byung In Kang.He has created designs for all sorts of products such as soju and he plans to make a statue like the Eiffel tower in Paris so that others can see the beauty of Korea.
 He gave us all gifts of a notebook and we did calligraphy on traditional Korean fans.When painting on the traditional Korean fans we were able to use different mediums such as sticks, sponges, forks, dowels, and pencils. He also wrote our Korean names on paper and signed it for us.

For the rest of the night we have free time...

Most of us went to eat pork belly for dinner and then we went to a cool stream in Seoul and we saw two statues General Lee and King Sejeong. King Sejeong is on the 10,000 dollar won and is famous for creating the Korean language/alphabet.

Some people are still out but a few of us wanted to get some sleep. Tomorrow is a big day...