Shopping at Bupyeong, Gyeongbukgung Palace, Tongin Market, Angels' Haven

Memories of individual days are becoming quickly indistinct. Thus begins the catalog of my first time back to Korea, chronologically arranged.

Mosaic Tour

Days 1 and 2 

 Friday 6.22 | Saturday 6.23

Bupyeong, a shopping district in Seoul. We went before the Tour officially began. Me and Korea staff arranged for us to get eyeglasses made at a local shop. This is significant because, as I would appreciate later, eyeglasses don't typically fit the Asian face, as most of us don't have a prominent nose bridge. I always assumed glasses had to sit on the tops of my cheeks. Well, au contraire mon frere - enter Asian fit glasses. For the first time ever MY GLASSES FIT ON MY NOSE. This was incredible.

Jenna, Emily, and I ate at a restaurant in Bupyeong. This meal was pretty monumental, because prior to this, we had only eaten at restaurants with the help of translators. Ok, full disclosure: We did have a little help from one of the volunteers, but for the most part we navigated this bit on our own. I felt kind of awesome afterward. This is pretty indicative of most of my Korean meals. The side dishes are called ban chan, and come free with your meal. They nearly always feature kimchi, and the rest vary according to. . . well, probably whatever the restaurant has on hand, I imagine. Those teeny anchovies were so super good.

Knitting shop in Bupyeong. I thought it was just lovely how these women sat and created together. They reminded me of Mamo.

Nearing the end of one of Bupyeong's streets.

More of the same street.

English was EVERYWHERE. I still have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it made things easier to identify. However, it doesn't sit well with me that Korea would find it so necessary to Westernize. Korean culture is important enough on its own. It doesn't need Western validation, IMO.

Admiral Yi Soon-shin. And me. From what little I can recall, he was a pretty important military bad ass and has been greatly venerated by both his peers and history. He defeated the Japanese in a critical battle during the 1500s with when all hope seemed to have been lost.

Sadly, the plaza was preparing for Korea's participation in the World Cup, so the front of this statue of King Sejong the Great was blocked off. All I got was this picture of the back of his head. His story speaks to my teacher soul. Before he invented Hangul (the Korean alphabet) only the aristocracy were literate. He was motivated to create Hangul because he wanted all Koreans to be able to read and write. He believed in educating his people.

I'm excited to see Gyeongbokgung Palace!

Trying to give a sense of scale. Vehicles kept getting in the way.

A lion? Dog? A lion-dog? Anyway, I was pretty full of my Korean pride on this day, so I was feeling it.

We have a saying in teaching that "You don't know what you don't know."

Before exploring Gyeongbokgung Palace, I figured it was going to be a cool place to go. I like art. I like history. Until I got there and saw it, the massive scale, each building and room, the tourists from all over the globe wearing rented hanbok, I didn't really know what it was that I was exploring. All these people were there to learn about Korean culture. They valued it, or they wouldn't have been there. I wanted to memorize every roof tile, every artfully-painted lotus, every door hinge. Each part of this grand collection of structures was made by my ancestors. My blood. I separated from the group for a while to discover and process this new revelation.

When I relayed my epiphany to a staff member, she knowingly replied, "Of course you got emotional. This is your culture. These are your people."

My Tour peeps. My KAD brothers and sisters.

Emily, Jenna, and I with tourists wearing hanbok. It stings a little that I didn't buy one while I was there.

Despite the fact that Gyeongbokgung Palace burned at least 3 times, (so this door hinge is probably a replica) I still love it because I love old things. It's weathered, but still functional and necessary. It was skillfully made by a person with a specific trade. 

One of the school rooms, if I remember correctly.

Definitely a school room. Where royal lessons were taught. Where royal essays were assigned.

Right before I took this picture, these 3 guys were cracking jokes with each other. 

The detailed artistry of my people.

These figures were on many old buildings. Korean gargoyles?

So many people wearing hanbok.

A more weathered lotus.

A beautiful door. Who went through it? Who made it?

The Royal Kitchen's plaque gives more info on not only this part of the palace, but how often the entire grounds were destroyed by the Japanese, and subsequently rebuilt by Koreans. 

These two ahjummas were just sitting down for a traditional tea in the palace kitchen. They were happy.

There were young women in traditional dress working at the palace kitchen, too, but they shied away from pictures.

Ok, so these palace guards. First, the beards. Beards were NOT a common sight in Korea. These are obviously fake, but they interested me nonetheless. Also, the demeanor of these guards was pretty intense. 

Don't break character. . . Don't break character. . .

Tongin Market is a traditional outdoor eatery. The vibe was a teeny bit touristy, but as I had nearly 0 knowledge of anything Korean, it was all good. We were given 10 old-timey Korean coins (the kinds with the holes in the middle) and sent on our way, wandering from vendor to vendor, looking for delights to tickle the taste buds. I ate so much, but didn't even spend all my money.

The food of my people is beautiful, with a variety of textures and colors.

Making scallion pancakes.

I can hear the market's chatter and smell all of its pungent aromas when I look at this picture.

Check out the little banana dude in the upper left corner.

One of the most meaningful parts of the tour was volunteering for a day with the Angels' Haven kids. These are children who, for various reasons, do not live with their parents but due to legal restrictions, cannot be adopted. Many will likely stay at Angels' Haven until they age out at 18. We were each matched with a child, which we knew about for months. My little girl's name was Kyuju. She was 4. From the description sent to us months ago, she was "shy and independent." This fit her to a T. She rebuffed most of my attempts at interaction, instead preferring to do for herself. My mom, in post-adoption letters to Eastern, described me similarly. Though Kyuju did, a few times, search for my hand to hold and try to engage me with words that I could not understand, for the most part, I saw in her the life that I might have led, had I not been adopted. Much of the tour was discovering our alternate selves. The portal to understanding tiny me was also a window into seeing myself through my parents' eyes, as I probably recoiled from their touch, too, at first.

That night was my mom's birthday, and while I called to wish her a happy birthday, it was also to express my gratitude at persistently parenting me, even when it probably seemed like I was never going to bond with them. I never imagined what a struggle that must have been for them. My parents never really described it or held it against me like some KAD parents.

My mom told me, during that same conversation, that I finally began to trust them when they offered me spaghetti for the first time.

Kyuju marvels at my expert seagull-feeding technique.

Kyuju allowed me include my foot in a few of her pictures. On the bus rides to and from the Han River cruise, I let her play a few games on my phone, which she seemed to enjoy. We exchanged some high-5s and smiles.

This was one of our longest days, so this dinner was a little hazy. I do recall the room being hot as hell. Those grills are no joke.

Kyuju let me feed her one lettuce wrap, then after that, she was like, "Ok, lady, you clearly have no clue what I like," so she mostly fed herself after that. She did, however, allow me to keep shoveling pork onto her plate, which I think, she enjoyed. Baby girl was pretty tired (we'd gone for a Han River cruise and played with the other kids and volunteers on the riverbank before that) so she got teary toward the end. We would find out later that the kids don't get to play outside very often, so she was unaccustomed to such strenuous activity. There was a particular Angels' Haven staff member she was fond of, and to her, she cried, "Eomma! Eomma!" when she needed comfort.