It's about time!!!!

Hi everyone! Daddy is finally (!!!) updating our blog. It has been almost a whole year! There is so much for us to tell you about. Where do we start...our trip to Korea of course....that's where we left off.

The day before our flight we drove down south and stayed with our friend Mya and her family. They live near the airport. We had a nice visit with them and Mya's mom packed us some good food to eat on our flights. Here is a picture of us having a picnic at the airport.

We flew to a Chicago and waited there a really long time before we got on a really big plane (Daddy says it was a 747). The airport at Chicago is really big. We even had to take a train from the terminal we arrived at to the one we were leaving from. One really big cool thing we saw in the airport was a dinosaur! You might be able to see Mommy and Lili beside it in this picture. Mommy and Daddy told us there is a famous museum in Chicago with lots of dinosaur fossils. We'll have to come back and check it out sometime.

So after a very long wait at the airport we got on the 747 and took off for Korea. At last! We left in the middle of the night and during the almost 12 hour flight we played with new things Mommy got for us (see the picture). listened to some music, watched a few movies, ate some food, but mostly slept. We arrived very(!) early in the morning at the international airport at Inchon, on the coast just outside Seoul. We took a bus ride on a big highway past farm fields (some rice paddies too!), small villages and into the the huge city of Seoul, capital of South Korea. Daddy's guidebook said that more than 12 million people live in Seoul. His book said it has been the capital of Korea for over 600 years. So there are old buildings temples and palaces to see in the city as well as lots of very modern buildings, really busy highways and a subway with 8 different train lines.

Our hotel, the Hamilton Hotel (see picture), was in a part of the city called Itaewon. There are lots of stores in Itaewon. It is really popular with tourists, maybe because it has some restaurants like at home: McDonalds, Burger King and Starbucks. But we liked the Korean restaurants the best. Here is a picture of us checking out some stores in a small alleyway near out hotel.

We saw lots of cool things during our stay in Seoul. We went to a museum at the LotteWorld department store, earned how to fly a plane (well just a simulator) at Asiana Airlines training center, went shopping in the famous Namdaemun market(where Mommy bought us both traditional Korean outfits called hanboks), learned how to do Taekwondo (Lili liked this the best), toured ancient palaces and ate lots of great food. Here are some pictures of our fun times in Seoul. That's Sunjoo one of our great guides with Lili and a palace guard at the gate of Gyeonghuigung Palace. And that's her helping Jin buy a hanbok at Namdaemun. And there is a picture of Lili riding a subway with "Santa", James' Dad.

We also took a bus ride north of Seoul to the demilitarized zone (or DMZ) which runs along te border (see picture) between North and South Korea. We took a small train down into a tunnel that the North Koreans dug to sneak into South Korea and went to a lookout with a view over the border. That's a picture of Jin and Mommy at the lookout.

The many generous sponsors of our trip treated us to lots of great food, hospitality and cultural shows almost every night. Here are pictures of a welcome sign and a very long food table at one of our many fancy dinner.

Well after a few very busy days in Seoul we all got on a bus and headed south to Jeonju (not Jinju like Daddy said in the last post). That's us on the bus with Trevor, his Mom and "Santa" (can you guess why we called him Santa?) and a picture of some scenery along the way.

In Jeonju we went a cultural center where we played traditional games (see picture) and learned how to make bibimbap, one of the national Korean dishes. Did you know that "bap" means rice in Korean? I don't know what "bibim" means, but the dish had eggs, vegetables and beef in it too. We also toured a folklore village (see the picture of traditional kimchee pots - kimchee or pickled spicy cabbage is the national side dish - Mommy and Daddy like it, but we think it's too spicy) and we went to the Jeonju Paper Festival. At the festival we made rice paper boxes. Here are pictures us on the bus (it our travel shades on) and Jin sleeping on the bus with Buddy riding in her rice paper box.

After Jeonju we drove to seaside town of Mokpo. There we visited an orphanage, a beautiful garden and the Samho-Hyundai ship building yard, took a boat tour around some nearby islands and made some pottery. Here are pictures of the huge pieces of ships and the 6 storey tall crane at the shipyard; all the kids on our tour (John-Lee, Imogen, Jin, Aiden, Lili, James and Trevor) in the fancy garden; us making pottery; and us playing with James and John-Lee at a seaside park in Mokpo. Fun!

We also ate some great food here too (see the picture of a waitress barbequing some pork right at our table). And there was some weird food too....Daddy ate live squid tentacles! Yech!!!

Now into the second week of our trip, we drove to the city of Gwangju and from there flew to Jeju Island, off the south coast of Korea. Jeju Island is called the Hawaii of Korea. It is a volcanic island (although the volcanoes aren't active anymore) and has an almost tropical climate (they grow oranges there!). All over the island there are statues carved out of lava rock that Mom said look like small versions of the big head statues of Easter Island. Here are some pictures from our short visit to Jejudo. One cool thing we did there was walk into a huge lava tube (really! thank goodness the volcano didn't erupt!). And we even got to dip our feet into the Pacific Ocean (it was too cold and windy for a swim).

Our trip was almost over now, so we had to leave Jeju Island and fly back to Seoul for our last couple of days in Korea. We did lots of last minute shopping in Seoul, ate more great food and toured around Deoksugung one of the many ancient palaces in the city. Here are some pictures of the palace: that's James and Jin studying a map of the palace grounds; Seogeodang, a really old 2 storey building; a shot of old roofs with the big buildings of modern Seoul in the background; and the doorway to a raditionl restaurant at Korea House where we ate lunch (see how everyone leaves their shoes at the door!).

Seoul and Korea were really cool places to visit. We met lots of very nice people on our trip. And the volunteers on our tour were especially great. Thank you all so much!!!!

It was time to go home though. So with our bags full of treaures, our tummies full of great food, and minds full of wondeful memories we boarded the big plane again for the long flight home.

Now Daddy has to get on with telling you all what happened after we got back....

Love, Jin and Lili