On the Subway to Nowhere

Today began at about 3:30 AM when Thomas woke up. The truth is that both Beth and I had been up and down most of the night, but were managing to rest. Thomas, on the other hand, had zonked out completely. He then woke up completely at 3:30. (Remember, that is 1:30 in the afternoon to our Central Time internal clocks.) To the left is Thomas playing with his Star Wars guys at that ungodly hour.

Finally, at around seven, we made our way next door to a 24-hour coffee shop where the parental units collectively downed four Grande Caffé Americanos. Beth was quite proud that we went to a local chain (We think these are only in Korea, though we may be wrong.), rather than Starbucks. We also liked the fact that it bore our son's name - Tom N Tom's Coffee. Here he is with his mug of milk.

We then began our journey to the National Museum of Korea, one of the six or seven largest museums in the world; comparable to places like the Smithsonian, the Vatican and the Louvre. Anybody who's spoken with us about our previous trip to Seoul has heard us say things like, "It's so easy to get around," and, "Everything's labeled so clearly in English and Korean that anybody could do it!" Now we don't necessarily want to take any of that back, but we will say that there's little worse than being lost in a giant city when nobody around you speaks your language. When we crossed over the Han river for the fourth time (We weren't supposed to cross it once!), we knew we were in trouble. After much consideration, we decided that the map in our tour book was out-of-date. Two hours later, we arrived at the Museum.

Below, you'll have to accept parental indiscretion as an excuse for the amount of pictures. Trust us, we edited plenty. Most of these pictures are taken at the Children's section of the museum, though we also attempted to make it through a history exhibit in the "grown-ups" section. When it got to be three hours past Thomas' nap-time, we headed for home. We made it back to the hotel without incident, using the maps on the train rather than our book.

Thomas and Mommy eating at the museum; Thomas, not interested in the Bee-bim Bop, eating raisins instead


Thomas playing a drum

King Daddy (Photo Credit: Thomas)

Thomas in front of a Korean warrior; Thomas liked the swords

Thomas in front of a ten-story pagoda

Thomas on his way home from the museum

Our naps were painful to awaken from. We were still fighting those internal clocks that thought it was the middle of the night. We decided that since Thomas had eaten (or rather not eaten, see above) Bee-bim Bop for lunch, that we might treat him to some good old Americana for dinner. We will have to ask Aunt Carrie if it was she that suggested Bulgogi Pizza.

Tomorrow morning we meet Russell and Elliot for the first time at 10 AM (8 PM CT). We can't wait to see what they look like. We then meet with Mrs. Lee, the foster mother who cared for Thomas before he came home to us, at 11AM. We are very excited about this meeting, as well.

Finally, for those of you aware of other happenings in Jared's life, his cousin Matt will be buried tomorrow. Please, if you can, say a prayer for his family, especially his Aunt Sharon, Uncle Andy, and Matt's sister and brother-in-law Megan and Clayton. And guys, if you're reading this, know that in the midst of our joy, we're also mourning with you. We're so sorry we can't be with you physically, but we are certainly there in spirit. We'll see you soon, and we'll have Russell Matthew Jin-pyo and Elliot Andrew Jin-seo with us.