Schurter Family: Exciting day in Seoul!!

Yesterday morning we started off shortly after breakfast walking to the subway. We had a quick consultation in the hotel lobby with staff who speak limited English, but are so warm and helpful. He advised us to take a bus or taxi to the subway.

However, we both happily agreed that the quickest and most thorough way to immerse in a culture is to walk their streets; so we have chosen to walk and take the subway everywhere!

Sometimes that means asking for help or confirming that we are headed in the right direction, as in this case! We built in over an hour to get to the Holt office in time for our meeting at 9:30 and we got there with about 10 minutes to spare... 😊

There are a lot of statues and artistic displays around Korea ... there's a very colorful and vibrant art community in Seoul.

Because Seoul is the capital of South Korea, it is very much like Washington DC; with lots of leaders depicted in statues and monuments. Here is King Sejong the Great.

He is one of Korea's most famous leaders and ushered in a time of great history and prosperity for the people. He also created Hangul; the Korean style of lettering, so that the common people could read and write.

The US Embassy is a street or two across from our hotel; so very close and guarded.

And after walking over and under the streets of Seoul for a while, transferring from one subway line to another, we arrived at Holt Korea's Children Services office.

We met Sera, the lovely staff person who is our host for our trip in Seoul and has handled the bulk of our paperwork and translation.

After signing another paper and delivering the stack of documents we carefully protected and carried over here from the States, we were ushered up to a conference room where the families would meet their children for the first time. There are five other families here adopting from the US.

As we left the office and went down the hall, we could hear voices outside the elevator. We turned the corner and there he was!! I didn't even need to look up at the foster mom to identify him.

(Unfortunately, you won't see his face because we're not supposed to post publicly until the adoption is finalized... but couldn't resist showing you a few! And in September, Lord-willing the rest of the pictures from our day will be posted here!)

We brought a few stacking blocks from home and a bottle of bubbles. Oh my goodness, did he love the bubbles! I think he and Luke played with bubbles the first 15 minutes we were together!

It was wonderful to finally be able to hug kiss and play with a sweet little guy after nearly a year of waiting to see him!

It's difficult to describe a conference room full of babies, toddlers, staff and anxious parents. It was a little distracting for me to focus to say the least, but Luke really zeroed in on our little guy as if he was the only person in the room!

I asked the foster mom a lot of questions; we use to translator when we couldn't understand each other. It was a very special time for us. She is such a sweet woman! She brought her high school aged son, who is an exemplary young man.

Our little one is her 8th and final foster child, so I'm sure this has been very bittersweet for her. She's extremely attentive to him and we know that he has been in the best of care. It was interesting to hear that her husband works on Jeju Island and she will be traveling with our little guy next week to visit him! So we all will be have been on Jeju-do this month!

He loves to imitate. Luke put on a little hand sanitizer and the little guy wanted his own! He rubbed and slapped his hands together, amusing all of us! SO cute!!!

It was depressing to have to say goodbye to him until Thursday... so we decided a brisk jaunt would perk us up! We walked to the top of Seoul Tower and ate a lovely anniversary dinner at a restaurant on one of the round levels! Gorgeous!