Our first full day.

Well, I wish that I could write about what a restful first night I had in Seoul. However...

I woke up at 4:30 this morning and could not fall back to sleep (Jet lag? Nervousness? Sheerjoyandanticipation??)  Try as I may to sleep, the longer I lay in the dark and listen to the quiet sounds of my mom and my mother-in-law sleeping, the more frustrated I got.  I finally crawled out of bed just before 6am and decided to hit the gym.  Four miles and a some crunches later, I crept back into our hotel room (still pitch dark inside)... Rubin's grandmothers still snoozing!!

I think it was just after 8 when they both woke up and allowed me to draw back the curtains and show them our view...

It was a beautiful day in Seoul today. Just over 70 degrees and sunny. A slight breeze at just the right times, in just the right places.  We slowly started our day, sitting a bit to enjoy our morning coffee and a wonderful buffet breakfast at our hotel.  Afterwards, we set out to find Social Welfare Society, which somehow still proved to be more confusing than it needed to be. (Krista, your directions were perfect.  I am stubborn, and could not let go of a faulty map that I had from our agency.)

Once we figured out exactly where we need to be tomorrow morning (at 9:20am) to meet Rubin's caseworker, we decided to venture into Yeoksam and Gangnam Stations and beyond. We found Putao in the GFC building and hope to have dinner there tomorrow night (sweet and sour pork, right Krista?) We also located the Kyobo Building and found the bookstore I posted about a few weeks back. I found a couple of nice books for Rubin... ABC and 123 books written in English with Hangeul (Korean script) and Ura's World by John Walker.  

We slowly and consciously wandered around, taking in the different sights and sounds of Seoul...

...the entire time, of course, thinking about Rubin. 

We finished our tour by walking over to the huge church that we can see from our hotel room, Choonghyun Presbyterian. When we arrived a service was just about to start, and so we found a spot to sit. We must have chosen the section designated for families with small children, and I found myself surrounded by young families like my own.  

I couldn't help but think about how, despite the language barrier, I could understand everything about the children... from the looks on their faces, their giggles, or whines, or sometimes cries. I couldn't help but think about Rubin, and hope that I know exactly what he wants and needs in the next couple of days as he is missing the only mother that he has ever known while he gets to know me.