Eating and shopping and tea, oh my!

(Kevin here. So it won't sound as smart as it usually does with Mal.. but she will say something at the bottom, so don't miss it.)

It's been a long day, so the easier route to blogging about our adventures is to share photos. Thus, I'll take you through our day via pictures and short captions. Enjoy.


I was excited about the day, so my body decided to wake up at 5:00am. The bad news is I couldn't get back to sleep. The good news is that I caught the beautiful sunrise from our room:

Our first and main order of business today was to take a tour of the city. We were accompanied and guided by our friend, Hyuna. She was awesome. Our first stop was at a the largest palace in Seoul, where Malerie really enjoyed hanging with the guards. And hanging LIKE the guards:

Then I found a piano in the middle of the city, so I played it. No tips were given. They don't tip in Korea. For real. They actually don't. No restaurant, taxi, or bellman tips. Ever. Here's the piano:

We fulfilled our desire to rule a country by dressing up like a king and queen:

An authentic Korean lunch included dumplings, some sort of fried "cakes" and of course, kimchi. Malerie attempted the chopsticks, but after much frustration, the nice lady at the restaurant reluctantly delivered that new age utensil, the fork. We also made sure to sport our family love, war eagle:

Right next to the restaurant was Hyuna's favorite tea cafe in the city. It was super delicious:

The atmosphere was even cooler. We sat on mats on the floor... without shoes (a traditional custom in Korea) by the way. Look:

Malerie was a natural. She even looked Asian drinking it:

And we found a cartoon character, who fell into the trap of taking the stereotypical Asian shot, meaning it couldn't resist the release of the peace sign from its hand. Good times:

There was definitely more to our day but the camera got put away, and it's almost 1:00am here. It's unfathomable that we will MEET GIA in NINE HOURS. Wow. God is so good to us.

Prayers are so appreciated on one of the wildest days of our life tomorrow. Or later today for most of you guys. :) Until then, we sleep. You go to work. And Gia is with us soon.

Kevin



I just want to share two really amazing moments from today.

Our tour guide was really sweet about us adopting from her country.  It never occurred to me how awkward I would feel walking around a country and knowing that I'm adopting one of their own babies.  I felt guilty at times as Hyuna asked us about Gia.  I'm nervous about what tomorrow will be like as we walk around with her as first time parents.  Anyway, at one point of today Hyuna asked what our baby's name was, so we gave her the Korean name and the American name.  She lit up and said, "That sounds much like a Korean name."  And then I lit up, "Really?!" Apparently Giha is a popular Korean name, and it's pronounced just like Gia.  How fun!  We didn't even know how culturally relevant we were when we chose that name.

The next amazing thing from today will not be amazing unless you know me.  I mean really know me.  I wore tennis shoes all day long.  All day.  No heels at all.  No flip flops at all. Just the tennis shoes.  Go ahead and catch your breath.  :)   But seriously, most every single woman here wears heels of various sizes.  I'm so impressed.  However, not one person wears flip flops, and that makes me all kinds of sad.  

Alrighty... time for some shut eye.