Here endeth the lesson or the blog as it stands today

Yes it's true, the holiday is over. It is now late Saturday and the mind remains in a morass brought on through as lack of sleep during the last couple of days. It was truly a great holiday and one we hope to repeat before too long.

Friday was our last morning in Seoul and there were two choices. Hang around all morning packing suitcases, checkout at midday then waste 2 hours till the bus arrives to take us to the airport, or checkout early and go shopping.

It should come as no surprise to see a mass evacuation from the hotel to reconvene at Namdemun Market. We had set a pretty difficult task in the form of last minute shopping for souvenirs, gifts and items for Barb who is now so skilled at shopping that it can be performed in absentia.

Actually 'the list' helped us to explore a few sections of the market not seen before and soon even Amelie was getting in the act of shopping. In fact it almost caused us to miss the train back to the hotel in time looking in vain for a Mario top in her size. Luckily she wasn't at all upset when this search had to be cut short.

The bus trip to the airport went amazingly smoothly thanks to a total lack of traffic on free-ways and toll-ways. One would have thought any tourism and sightseeing had finished after check-in, but there were a few surprises behind passport control/gate lounges.

Korean Tourism were clearly in full swing to promote their country as a holiday destination. It is not a stupid as it sounds. Nowadays many more flights are using Incheon as a transit point, leaving people to wander duty free stores for hours, or to use the opportunity to promote the country many only see behind closed doors.

Preparing paper for wood block printing at Insadong Airport

Jin beginning inking his woodblock

KTO organised activities such as wood block printing, straw weaving, Han-bok dress-ups and photographs and our very own royal Wedding held in the airport departure lounge. The grand parade wandered the full length up and back complete with music before pausing to perform the ceremony itself metres from our gate.

What a shame the call to board came before final vows could be witnessed.

This time the flight ran through the night and all three of us failed to gain any real significant sleep. Amelie managed about 4 hours, Liz struggled to match this and I barely slept at all. Due to travel induced insomnia we were looking forward to the battle through Australian immigrations and customs as our return with Amelie three years ago took over three hours.

The money from commercial television (on shows suxh as border patrol) may have helped highlight Australia as one of the slowest border crossings in the world as it has been greatly improved. Enough inspection points are open to process customs declarations and searches and staff are on hand to help filter people through to appropriate lines where various searches are required.

I missed out on a damned good grump when we found ourselves out in the sunshine within 35 minutes of disembarkation. Soon we had collected the car from long term parking and were brewing the first decent coffee in a month on our own espresso machine within 2 hours.

Thankfully this long overdue improvement in travel and one we were truly grateful for.

The return home now moves our holiday into the abstraction of memory. Fond memories for sure and leaving a desire to plan a return sooner rather than later.

I find myself strangely restless, when exhaustion should be taking hold. Liz and Amelie collapsed into bed and slept 5 to 7 hours respectively. I found strange energy to mow the lawns and still haven't worked out where this urge came from. Perhaps the overflowing front yard due to falling leaves from Autumnal inundation.

The real reason for such restlessness could be due to the fact this is the longest period I have had without a fly fishing rod in hand and the knowledge a few minutes down the road is a little reservoir stocked................

Addendum:

Back again Sunday and I manage 5 fish with 2 well over a kilogram. Hepburn Lagoon is living up to it's reputation as being one of the top 3 fish fattening waters in the world. The fish stocked there in November (the lake was bone dry last March) were yearling about 20 to 25cms long. They've nearly tripled weight in 6 months. Still I look forward to New Zealand in three weeks.

Me again Tuesday 3^rd May. The drums purchased near Insadong (blog entry Apr 28) arrived today. All three families received drums the same day. They were sent air-freight and arrived within 3 working days. Amelie and I enjoyed a great jam session and now all we need do is look for lessons online.

The final note is a sincere thank-you to INKAS and staff for helping to organise our tour. INKAS perform many valuable services to Koreans Adopted internationally. I urge any one Adopted internationally of Adoptive Families to make use of the support and other services from INKAS.

To Sunny, Rachel and other INKAS staff as well as volunteer students who helped support, such as Jane and Nancy and to Shalom, our Home-Stay Host our sincere thanks for a memorable trip. You have only served to create the desire to return before too long.

To Eastern Social Welfare and Amelie's Foster Mother,Mrs Lim. Thank-you for making time to meet and welcome Amelie. She has not stopped talking of the experience. It was so interesting hearing her compare notes with Lily a fellow 3 year old Adoptee. “My Foster mother has black hair.” “So does mine!” The return and meeting has proven most rewarding for all in our family.

The last of the Summer Wine

A nice family sightseeing day following the family shopping day yesterday while the rest of the group went to tour the Kia Factory, Taekwondo and Baseball.

We joined the Dennis family on a jaunt to Coex. Coex is a massive building that puts Chadstone to shame as a shopping mall. Why on Earth, after a day of complete shopping across many Seoul suburbs, would we choose to go to the mall is a bit of a mystery until you learn that coex includes a casino.

Travel on Seoul's efficient subway system is easy and safe

Well that and a massive theatre showing contemporary musicals, huge expo atrium and.... oh yes, more importantly, an aquarium.

Enlarge the picture to see hundeds of baby Sea Horses

So this was. Basically, the purpose of the day. A little light hearted sightseeing for the kids.

Now we have seen Aquariums in several Australian states and overseas countries. Well Koreans do it differently with that little naff flare that no other nation can quite match. Sure they feature fish and aquatic life native to the Korean peninsula, but no other aquarium seeks to use so many everyday items as fish tanks.

There are fridges, washing machines, traffic lights, bed heads, vending machines, telephone box, complete with deceased agent 86 making his last call. All appropriately located within the kids gallery of the aquarium.

Amelie's favourite by far were the Doctor Fish. Some of you may have heard of these little fish as they have become popular as a natural beauty product. These blighters have a voracious appetite and gleefully take to cleaning dead skin from the surface of submerged bodies. This basically makes them the piranhas of the ex-foliation industry.

These fish were kept in a large spa bath covered with a perspex lid. The lid had hand sized slots through which digits could be nibbled enthusiastically by piscatorial nail technicians. Amelie delighted in how they tickled, enjoying the sensation so much we had to drag her away from the tank.

How many heads?

Pirhanas look pretty hungy this close

Although the visit began peacefully enough, soon hoards of school children descended upon us. Being Korea, it wasn’t just one school and it kinda felt like the elephant dawn patrol from “The Jungle Book”. It seemed like there were thousands of them, not quite as many as the Traditional Folk Village, but they all were using their outside voices and concrete only reflects 98% of sound.

Following lunch Dennis Dad and Reddick Abba went off to try a little souvenir hunting on their own. You guessed it, this meant a desperate dash to Yongsan Electronic Market and Techno Mart. Almost every kind of electronic toy and gadget is on display making them geek paradise. I must be getting old as nothing appealed. Sure there toys, lots of toys, but it was all kinda 'same ol, same ol'. Whatever happened to 'he who dies with the most toys wins'. Must be getting old. Even Brendan missed oun on his hobby trains as the hobby stores didn't have them in stock contrary to website claims.

Actually the likes of eBay and online shopping are taking away the appeal of these places. You need to do considerable research about an item you wish to purchase and as the Internet is the main research tool, you may as well stay online.

We cut short our shopping jaunt as we had to make ourselves beautiful for the INKAS farewell dinner. It was the last hurrah and final celebration of our Inter-country Adoption Return Trip to Korea.

This was a requiem, celebration and debrief all in one. Now a debrief is defined by Wikipedia as semi-structured conversation with an individual who has just experienced a stressful or traumatic event. Well for Sunny, and Rachel, the better part of 3 weeks guiding a bunch of Australian and KAUSSIE kids is the kind of event worthy of a thorough debrief.

Expressing our thanks to Sunny and INKAS President.

Sunny translating to her boss about the great job she did. Not awkward at all

Please take it from us Sunny, Rachel and fellow INKAS staff, one of the greatest compliments an Australian can give is a leg-pull, tease, and ribbing. To have a bunch of Aussies willing to provide the odd friendly jibe is a great compliment to your work to make this a thoroughly memorable journey for all our families. Well it's that or my revenge for that raw sting-ray sushie.

Rachel with the kids

Sunny provided a most interesting summary of INKAS activities and services. Whilst primarily a support group for Korean children adopted internationally, the range of activities is considerable. Helping families plan itineraries for homeland visits is but a minor, but welcome part of the overall support given to Korean born Adoptees.

Rachel and Amelie couldn't take their drooling eyes off the cake.

Birthday Girl Barb playin the field

Fabris Family, Rob, Barb and Lee

Guess who likes cake

Liz with our INKAS host Sunny

The evening also included the 50^th birthday milestone of one of our favourite Mums and shopaholic Barbara. Birthday cake and champagne flowed to make a great evening almost perfect with cheering parents and minors high on sugar.

Remember the ceramics painting? Well Liz managed a great scam. Her plate cracked during the glazing/firing process so to make it up to her the potter supplied a replacement. Given he is one of the most recognised potters in Korea, this bowl is worth almost as mush as Liz's original. She felt very humbled by the gesture.

After such a wonderful evening, why on Earth did someone go and spoil it by suggesting Norebang. For those uninitiated Norebang is the Korean name for Karaoke so you can imagine the way the evening finished. Not a pretty sight.

Do you think they realise?

Entry to Norebang. Very understated.

Some of the INKAS staf showing how professionals do norebang

Still the kids had fun.

Family shopping time away from the group....or Ha Michelle, beat you tothe blog again.

Wow it seems the holiday is reaching the end all too fast. The pace is almost frenetic combining both sightseeing and shopping.

Today most of the group went off to tour the Kia Car factory, followed by attending a professional Korean baseball game in the evening. Having worked with Holden/EDS the prospect of a production line wasn't that inviting. Come to think of it, from a test cricket fanatic, baseball would have to be one of the most boring spectator sports. It's really personal opinion, but the games I have watched locally haven’t encouraged me to see pro games.

We opted to get some of the shopping done that was weighing over our head. Some larger souvenir and Korean items that we have wanted to purchase since realising we missed the opportunity three years ago. This added to requests/favours for family/friends and the wish to allow Amelie to choose a Han-bok for herself meant the time snatched today would make much difference to our stress levels.

Stop number one was to Namdamun market to buy some leather purses for kids and trick windcheaters. A little study of the Namdamun map revealed a fishing shop or two on the outskirts and I arranged with Liz a little momentary separation to supposedly better make use of time. Of course my task was simple so I detoured via the fishing shop.

Caught Red-handed, or is that Red Faced?

Worked against me though as Liz anticipated this little diversion and caught me red-handed in the the midst of piscatorial retail therapy. I tried to justify myself by reasoning that all I had to show f]or the trip so far was one T-shirt (no it did not say all I got was a lousy......). Actually it only catered for bait fishing, so nothing much interested a real fisherman until I spotted the rod bags. One designed for carp multi-piece rods turned out perfect as a travel bag for my fly-fishing rods foe the trip to NZ next month. What's more it was less than a third of similar fly-fishing purpose bags and offers same rod protection on the sides if it has to go in the aircraft hold.

The next task was to once again attempt to find and ship traditional Korean drums known as Jan-gu. An adult drum is hour-glassed shape and is about 40cms in diameter and 50cms high. A bit impractical to try take home as carry-on as half the shop jokers suggest around Insadong, but finally we found a shop a little further out willing to arrange delivery to Australia. He gained the pleasant surprise that we wanted 3 drums shipped to separate addresses but a nice bonus for him.

He turned out to be very helpful for tourists and we highly recommend visiting his store. He speaks a little English, finding it difficult to understand our accent, but could communicate through hand written notes. His website is all in Korean, but is www.urikukaksa.com. He is about 5 minutes walk from chandeokgung palace. We grabbed a few business cards as reference to our Han-hok friends but anyone should find his shop easy to find.

Our delicious lunch in Insadong
About we rembered to photograph fantastic spreads from great restaurants.

Next stop was Insadong to finally purchase a lovely print we have had our eye on for a number of days. There is a set of 4 each depicting one of the 4 mythical creatures of the 4 compass points. The prints themselves are made from antique stamps/blocks and the artist creating them has some international recognition. The return to Insadong allowed a luncheon at what has become one of our favourite restaurants and we again had BBQ pork that is wrapped into a leaf, parilla or lettuce, added to with various Kim-chi condiments. The other dish was bulgoggi stew/soup. I have become quite addicted to this as the broth is devine. At about AU$8 is a great value dish for the flavours involved and savoury pleasure.

When Gwangjang shops say hand-made, they mean it

The day was not done yet. Down we walked to Gwangjang Market near Dongdaemun Market. This is one of the better Han-Bok markets and where we purchased Omma & Abba Han-bok and a couple of Amelie's three years ago. We wanted to give Amelie the opportunity to select and buy her own. She chose very well and did well with the price too. It is a Red Skirt with a pale green jacket and included hat, purse and petticoat. Bless her it wasn't pink as I had feared. When given the chance Amelie displays the ability to be quite discerning. Not good news for her Father though......... a born shopper.

We made our way back to the hotel via a walk to City Station via Cheonggyecheon stream. This has been much written about and now is a great feature of the city to provide a little artificial natural atmosphere to one of the most heavily populated areas in the world.

Little Amelie is a trooper. She must have covered at least 6 to 10 klms today, mostly without complaint or tears. She did settle into an hour sleep in the back-pack, but did most of the walking without too much need to bribe/cajole/drag. She is really feeling the impact of the busy pace and long days, but has taken to the visit to Korea positively. It gives us great pleasure to see she feels so good towards her birth country even at this age.

Finally returning with the spoils of war, we dumped items in our room to head over to the food court of Hyundai Department Store across the road to take pot luck with evening snacks as a meal. Fried mandoo dumplings both vegetable and meat varieties were topped with single cone ice-creams as a little indulgence and happy ending to our pleasant, but busy family day.

There is only one taask left for today and it can be performed over the rim of a well earned Duty Free cointreau and await the return for a chat with the Dennis's after their trip to the baseball. That is to finally gloat that i beat Michelle to a complete, pictures and all blog.

Cheers!

Big Time brownie points...... Plus ... Ha beat ya Michelle

Pictures to come.... Just had to publish a days bloge before Michelle just once.

Time now to reflect on how Korea has changed, even during the three years since adopting Amelie.

Dr Kim reflected upon this during her speech to us. South Korea has moved from third-world to first-world at lightening pace and continues to grow at a frenetic rate.

This means that values and traditions are challenged daily. This is astoundingly detailed in fashion, particularly women's fashion. During our Country night's and pre-travel briefings prior to adoption, it was continually emphasised how conservative Korean society is. Take it from me, things have changed.

Dresses were mainly conservative business with the odd above the knee skirt protecting modesty with opaque tights. Nowadays clothing is more provocative and dress length varies from conservative business, to discreet knee to 'show us your breakfast'.

Often the SUYB wearer attempts to conserve some modesty by the addition of opaque tights, but I'm sure many an older businessman is waken from soju induced slumber aboard subway carriages wishing they were a few years younger.

Technology has moved on too but train travel has the same lack of eye contact now due to ipads, smart phones or micro-TV drawing all attention to a 2 inch screen, centimetres from one's face.It is probably the reason for the SUYB skirt/cut-off jean. I mean a girl's gotta get attention somehow.

I would love to be here on the day sunspot activity wipes out all electronic machinery instantly to have one realise everything below one's navel is on full display when reaching to hold the overhead hand straps. Fortunately for the SUYB girls the lights will be out in the tunnel carriages to protect against that realisation.

Today involved a morning long bus ride to Le chen Ceramic Village outside Seoul for a ceramic making experience. All of use enjoyed painting raw ceramic plates to be glazed in time for our departure Friday. Artistry skill and dexterity was truly on show by young and old. Naturally in protest to Sonny's refusal to take us all to a fly-fishing shop, my scene involved casting the perfect loop. Liz relished the opportunity to revive the skills that won gold medals for handwriting at the Swan Hill show to create a master piece of her own.

Barb working on her masterpieceMrs Lee in the Advanced class

A few lucky individuals also had an opportunity to throw their own pots on the potters wheel. Liz had the full Patrick Swayze “ghost” experienced when I seized the moment from behind. Perhaps I went a little too far leaving two muddy, clay hand prints on the front of her blouse. Apparently that wasn't really in the version of the movie I recall.

Deb Sans Mr Sway-step

Sue can work without a net and with an audience

The afternoon return bus trip took us to Insadong for a brief shopping stint again searching fruitlessly for Traditional Korean Drums or Jan-gu and a retailer willing to arrange shipment to Australia for us.

Guess who was hyped up after the JUMP Stage show

The real highlight came attending the live show JUMP. This is a frenetic non-verbal stage production involving martial arts. Paul, our tour martial arts expert and Taekwondo practitioner assured us each performer specialised in a particular martial art discipline and the highly choreographed show made full use of their acrobatic skills.

The comedic storyline kept us all in stitches, particularly young Jin whose cute giggles could be heard by all in the theatre. How refreshing to have a show appeal to all comers regardless of age or race. We all left high on the adrenal boost provided by the show.

Autographs with the Cast of JUMP

What that means for the last couple of days or the tour and our older boys can only be tested by time. Hopefully all parents remember to hideaway those bamboo swords obtained in Jeonju.

Scenes from the Night Markets

The final act of the night ended with the collection of brownie points by us bleeding heart fathers. I hope Mums really appreciate the opportunity of a night attack on the markets, leaving us the dads to attempt to put to sleep the testosterone fuelled martial inspired tribal warriors.

At last. A store that tells it like it is......

We'll need more than an hour in Yongsan (the electronics market) to make up for this one for sure!!!!!!!!!!!! Just ask Michael.