Parents' visit, as experienced by my mom

Yay! My mom wrote about my parents' visit from her perspective! Thanks Mom! Here's what she came up with. Note: If I add anything, I'll bold it. I swear I didn't add all those nice things about how great I am... Again, thanks for taking the time to write this, Mom! 

We never thought when purchasing our passports back in 2010 that we’d be using them to visit South Korea, (or that one of our three children would be living and teaching there)!  But we did and Laura does!

We embarked on our 14-hour plane ride with something you wouldn't call enthusiasm, but much to our surprise, it turned out to be not so bad.  We watched several movies (we each had our own screen) and had our first taste of Korean beer (Hite) and Korean food (bibimbap)!  (We enjoyed both.)

Ah, the joys of bibimbap. Here's a photo of bibimbap we ate later in the trip. In Korean, "bap" means rice, and "bibim" means mixed. So this is, literally, mixed rice; but there's so much stuff for mixing, you can't even see the rice at the bottom!

Clockwise from the top: bean sprouts, dotorimuk (jelly made from acorn), lettuce, carrots, some white vegetable that I don't recognize, some green vegetable that I don't recognize, beef, and radish kimchi. The egg yolk in the middle cooks as you mix it with the hot rice (and the bowl is hot). Also, the hot pepper paste in the middle is no joke. But I digress...

Our whole flight was in sunlight with the change in the time zones.

Note: I won’t bore you with our day-to-day itinerary, but will try to summarize our trip in a few paragraphs.  (If you’re disappointed, please e-mail me and I will send you a copy of our journal!!! ha ha)

Our arrival was by far the best---we couldn’t wait to see Laura!!!  And I just love this picture:

Yay me!

To sum up South Korea, I would have to say:  SO MANY PEOPLE!!!  But they (South Koreans) handle it well.  Their transit system, i.e., busses, subways, cabs, trains all seem to run on an organized schedule and we utilized ALL of them!  We were so proud of Laura talking in Korean with the cab drivers explaining where we would like to go. We thought we would be able to hand them a business card or an address and that would be it (little did we know!!!).  Laura just took over like she’s lived there for years…

This was walking back from the War Memorial of Korea and below is a picture of the bullet train we took to see some of the countryside---I heard it was beautiful (nap time for mom)!

For those of you who do not know Laura well, she is a planner to say the least!  She had so much packed into our 12-day visit, yet we still had some down time to relax.  She is the perfect daughter, hostess and travel coordinator! I'm going to start a tour business now: 10-day tours of Korea for the low price of raising a child (plus tuition)!

We toured the War Memorial of Korea, the Seoul Tower (well, Laura and Dad went up in the tower, as I do not like heights and the bus ride up was an experience in itself), a Korean folk village, a zoo, a Palace, a temple (with an unexpected personal guide), The National Folk Museum of Korea, a stage production called, “Nanta,” and a Korean grocery store, “Lotte Mart” that is like our Costco on steroids---so many free samples!

Here's some links if you are interested: War Memorial/Museum, Seoul Tower, folk village,  Gyeongbokgung Palace, Bongeunsa Temple, and Nanta.

Lotte Mart!

Some of the sites that deserve their own “spotlight” are:

The DMZ---this was not a fun place to be or think about but definitely wanted to visit.  I (mom) could not wait to get back to the bus!  We did get to step foot over into North Korea and see the guards on both sides---just an eerie feeling being there.  Hearing about the infamous axe murder, the bridge of no return and how they have pulled people through the door from South Korea into North Korea just gave me the goosebumps! 

Noraebong (Korean karaoke rooms) was sooo exciting!  We met some of Laura’s friends, Ethan, Minho, Quinlin (from Missouri) with her co-workers’ Kelli and Randy (from Toronto) and Laura’s Korean friend, Lucy (who brought me Korean tea and soap!).  We had our first taste of Soju (Korean alcohol made from rice)….and was introduced to a drink called Somack!  Mixing Soju and beer “mackju”= Somack!  I have never sung so well!!! We went to a Karaoke club where each group gets their own room with two microphones…Dancing Queen, Super Trouper, Korean songs, Some Nights, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Johnny Cash, Eminem…can tell the guys had a lot of input into what songs were chosen…ha!  We definitely made some memories that night….I think.  (Erica I will let you hear the video snippets someday!)

Laura’s school was by far the best part of the trip---the children are too cute! Welp. So much for all that planning... We were greeted and treated like royalty---the Director of the school (who could not speak English) guided us to her office (after we removed our shoes) and had tea brought in for us.  Then we toured the school and got to meet some of the students (as it was their last week of the school year most had already left.)  We also met the other English teachers, who had been there for a few years if I remember correctly---a great group of teachers!!!

They each helped make the “Welcome” sign behind us and Daisy, who is standing to the right of me, made me some stationery as a gift.  We could tell just from a few of the students that Laura had an interesting/exciting school year with this class!!! Ha ha See: the two boys in front of my dad.

It was very heartwarming to see how the teachers/principal respect and admire Laura; and the students just adore her.  We couldn’t be more proud.

We went to the show the night before we were going home and saw Les Miserables—a play that I had always heard about but had never seen—but not the best movie to see the day before leaving your daughter in a volatile state.  The tears began…

Monday came too fast and as we got into our cab and said our tearful good-byes…halfway down the street Mike realized he forgot his camera bag so we went back (u-turn right then and there) and was hoping to see Laura one more time, but she had already left for the subway back to her home…and the tears continued…

What a memorable experience we had…and looking forward to our next adventure---Italy? Australia? Greece?  Can’t wait to see where we (I mean she) get to go next!!! 

We will never forget the time we had in South Korea with you and your friends!  Thank you so much! (Gamsahabnida!)