Blogs from Sincheon, Seoul, South Korea, Asia

--- Apologies for the long blog silence, apparently there are still places without wifi as standard :-o --- My first day in Seoul without my new Taiwanese friends (they went back to Taiwan today) I decided to explore a bit on my terms. So far, we had travelled everywhere by tube, which was fine as far as it went - Seoul's underground system is clean, fast and air-conditioned, are you paying attention TfL??? But the disadvantage of travelling underground is that you never get a sense of how the city pieces together. My first discovery was that the city centre (which includes the financial district near City Hall, the palace/tourist district in Insadong and the shopping district in Myeongdong) is actually quite small - 20 mins, perhaps 30, walking from end to end. Somehow it all ... read more

The day has finally arrived!! We picked up Whitlee today! We started the morning off meeting with Hudson's foster mom, Mrs. Choi. We tried to prep Hudson as much as you can prep a 2 year old 'that a strange lady loves you very much and is going to hug the ever-living daylights out of you when she sees you. This will be ok. You will survive and probably get candy and presents.' Mrs. Choi definitely did that. and more. We were waiting outside the Post Placement Service door for Hudson's former social worker, when Mrs. Choi and her 10 yo granddaughter (who was a big part of both Hudson and Evan's life) came running up the steps. She scooped up Hudson and kept talking to him. I recognized all of about one word-JoonSeong. We continued ... read more

real time is actually Sunday night 10 June and I am really behind so must catch up with this blog. I have had an extremely slow day today due to a relatively hard night drinking and eating last night with my American buddy Uday but you will hear about that later. 6 June is actually Memorial Day in Korea but from the couple of Koreans I spoke to they did not seem really clear on what it actually commemorated! I think it is basically the same as Memorial Day in the USA which notionally honours the efforts of their armed forces generally in various conflicts. It is certainly not the same date as that of the start of the Korean war, 25 June 1950 as I recall, nor the "ending" (of full scale hostilities only) of ... read more

This is Thanksgiving weekend in Canada so it wouldn be right not to acknowledge it! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone at home. I would do bad, bad things for some roast turkey and moms stuffing right about now :) Some things that I am thankful for include but of course are not limited to: - family that loves me and friends that miss me (i am surprised, too!) - my healthy, wonderful body - tom pettys "free fallin\" - I was always grateful for this but now I will be even MORE grateful upon my return to Canada: drinkable tap water - sea salt List goes on but I have things to share... Last week was Hanbok Day in Korea. Hanbok is traditional clothing that is worn by men and women during festivals or other celebrations. They ... read more

Two things happened today that really stand out in my somewhat boring scheduled routine day. I'll start with the bad one since I've always been the type that prefers the good news last. 1. I bit into a plum that had a WORM in it. this may not seem like a big deal to most people but I almost fainted. I don't really care for worms or creepy crawlers but to have one in my mouth was just.. so.. gross. 2. It rained. I mean it raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnneddddddddddd! and I love this. This is actually one of the things I love most about Korea. I have never lived in a place that has rained enough for me. I have rain standards that always seem to fall short in Canada. It will rain for about 5 or 6 ... read more