Culture shock round 2

So we finally got our travel information for South Korea. Don't get too excited it is just a packet of info telling us what to expect when we get there. We are figuring we have 10-12 months before we travel.

Travelling to countries outside of North America was something I had never done until we went to Ethiopia. It was an awesome experience to be some place new, some place where I wasn't the majority, some place so welcoming and beautiful. I loved Ethiopia. It was an eye opening, life changing moment. You can't go to some place like Ethiopia and see what we saw and not come home a changed more grateful and aware person.

Korea is going to be different from Ethiopia but culture shock all the same. Things are much more formal in Korea. We will be packing dress clothes. As in Dave will need to pack a tie or two and maybe depending on the time of year we travel a sport coat. I will need to pack business attire and/or a dress or two. Who knew.

The trip itself will also be much less structured. In Ethiopia we had an hour by hour itinerary. Korea we will not. We only have to be in Korea for 3 days. We will likely spend a few days before our official arrival date sight seeing.

We want to soak up as much as we can while in Korea and the packet gave us some ideas of things to look into. We have lots of things to figure out like will we stay in the guest house or will be stay at a hotel? Are we going to uses taxis or the subway? Will we dare try McDonald's or Baskin Robbins while there or try and eat mostly Korean food? Which to date I haven't yet tried but no worries I will and I am not at all worried about it. I wasn't really with Ethiopian food either. I knew once we decided to adopt from Ethiopia that I needed to jump in and just be adventurous. I am not typically an adventurous eater but that is changing and my dear husband and my children have helped to broaden my food horizons.

Included in the packet was info about how our first meeting with Sweet Baby K and foster mom will go. I got teary eyed just thinking about it. We will be allowed to photograph and video tape the meeting. It will last about an hour. Baby K will go home with her foster mom after that meeting. We likely won't see her again until the day we are to return home. This was hard to read. Really hard. I am not going to want to let her go once I see her and yet I understand that this will be very emotional for her foster mom as well.

At this time in Korea, it will be almost certain that we will never meet Baby K's birth mother. This breaks my heart but culturally it is not deemed okay at this time. There are steps being taken to maybe change this but as of it that isn't the case. This will be tough. One of my most cherished memories will always be the 20 minutes or so that I was able to be in the same room with Zinash. I won't forget a moment of that meeting. It is something so precious that I can share with Kiya. We can travel to Ethiopia and see her again. I won't be able to do this with Baby K. We will have her foster mom. We plan to cherish that relationship and do with it what we can.  It is just different.

Ethiopia and Korea are so very different. Our daughter's stories are so very different and yet we are all a family. We have a tie that binds us all together. It's called love.