What a day!

Today was a great day. It was the day I got to pick up Jayne Riley for good!

We began the day, though, with our city tour provided by Holt. We had three tour guides and one other couple (pretty good ratio if you ask me). We began by touring the Gyeongbokgung Palace. What a beautiful palace it was. I couldn't help but think that it was built I believe about 7 centuries ago (please excuse my historical accuracy. I will check my figures when I get back home).




Check out some of the detail of the building:


This is a picture of our group that toured:


We then went and toured the National Folk Museum of Korea. After the Folk Museum, we worked up quite an appetite. So what did we eat you ask?


If you know me well, you know that this was NOT my lunch, but this was on the street as we walked through the market towards the restaurant

Here IS my lunch.

It was Beef Bulgagi (Bull-go-gi) in a soup. Bulgagi is a dish of marinated beef that is cooked on a small grill at your table. But you had to have two orders of it at your table in order to get it so I could not get the regular Bulgagi. I instead got this dish, which was the Bulgagi in a soup. I even had my Coke. In case you are wondering how my reading of Korean is going, the front of that bottle says "Coke". Pretty good, huh?

Here are our tour guides Soojin Kim, Young Suejo, and Julie Song


And here is Valerie and Stephane. They are from France and are adopting their second child from Korea


Walking around:


We went for some tea and then shopped a little bit in the Insadong market shops and then walked to see the Cheonggyecheon Stream. The stream was a revitalization and beautification project headed up by the then Seoul mayor, who now is the President of Seoul. It is absolutely beautiful and tranquil right in the middle of this enormous city.





We then were on our way to pick up Jayne RIley. I think mom and I were beyond exhausted, but when we showed up at Holt and saw her, we both were rejuvenated. It was a bittersweet time because it was sweet for us to pick her up to begin our lives together but also was sad to see her wonderful foster mother have to say goodbye. After spending a while in the office, the goodbye was quick and we hopped in a taxi on our way to the hotel. I held Jayne Riley up in the window to look at Mrs. Cha as we drove away. Very sad!




But God is good and I have my little girl in my possession. We came to the hotel and played for a while and then gave her a bath and then a bottle and she was off for the night. Except for about 20 minutes when I talked to Meg and the boys on Skype, so they could see her and we could see them. She was talking big time at them (or an eight month old's version of talking. Very sweet!

Here she is after her bath:


Here is my bed that my daughter and I slept on (maybe I should say she slept and I dozed off and on).



As I was posting this, Jayne RIley woke up from a great night's sleep (with a feeding at 3:00) and is in a great mood. I'd have to say I am so glad for her attitude thus far. She is being very sweet. We are going to do a few things today and we will write to tell you about them later!

See you all later!

Jason

P.S. Here is mom's first time to feed her granddaughter. This was a few minutes ago after Jayne Riley woke up!



Have a great night's sleep to all of you across the pond, I've got another busy day ahead of me!