Our trip to Seoul, Korea

We are recovering from our journey to Korea to see Brian, Ann and Natasha and to meet Tatyana. We had a very busy, but extremely memorable, trip. We saw as many sights as we could with two little girls in tow, our favorites being, of course, Tasha and Tyana. :) I will give you a brief description of our daily activities in subsequent blogs; we hope you will view the Korea 2009 album in the Photo Album link which is included on this page.

September 20 and 21-Seoul

The flight to Seoul seemed SO much easier than our flights to Thailand. We flew to San Francisco where we changed planes and then flew directly to Seoul - a total of 14 hours of flying time t0 Seoul versus 19 hours minimum to Thailand. One of the first things we saw as we exited the airport terminal was a man walking a Westie!! Brian met us at the airport, and we took a bus to our hotel in Gangnam. Of course, we were very anxious to see the rest of the family and were sad to hear that Tasha had had an accident as they were just getting to the hotel which resulted in a fat lip, bruising by her nose, and eventual bruising by both eyes. In the pictures you will see the scab under her nose which we referred to as her "Charlie Chaplin." There was a mirrored wall in our suite, and she would start to get upset every time she saw herself in the mirror! Other than the bruising, she was just fine. We soon got reacquainted and discovered that she was like a parrot. Whatever we said she repeated. In addition, she mimicked our actions as well. She enjoyed doing morning stretches with us. I was so delighted that she fell asleep in my arms as we were reading a book the second day we were there - a rare occurrence but one that is very memorable for me. I would have loved to have had a picture of it, but everyone else was asleep as well!! Tyana surprisingly warmed to us very quickly, and I was especially thrilled that she let me hold her the second day we were together. She loves to mimic "oh oh" and repeats it over and over. She has a very infectious smile. We brought Raggedy Ann dolls for both of the girls. At their home in The English Village, Tasha has a cloth doll with very long arms and legs (it is actually taller than her), and Brian told her that the doll looked like Olive Oil. To Tasha, ALL dolls are called "Olive"; hence Raggedy Ann is "Olive" as well. Gangnam, the area in which we stayed, seems very much like Manhattan in New York. We were amazed at how dressed up the Korean people get, especially the women. If you are interested in fashion, you would love Seoul!!! I have never seen so many women walking around in high heels. They are very attractive which made spending time walking the streets very enjoyable for Kevin as well. :)