Land of Morning Calm, Broad Respect, and Bright Silk

Journey of Korean Ties homeland tour group, July 2000
a trip journal by Steve Gaarenstroom

Charley drove us (Steve, Nancy, Dale (14) and Amy (12)) to Detroit Metro Airport in the early morning. The Meiers (Skip, Joleen, Scott (13), and Kelsey (9)) stayed at a hotel near the airport the night before. We will fly American Airlines to Chicago, then Korean Air to Seoul. Our flights are on time. On the first flight, we meet the third family from Michigan who is on the tour, Jim, Kris, and Min Skivington. Amy, Kelsey, and Min hit it off right away. The Chicago to Seoul plane ride is about 13 hours. We have two meals and watch 3 movies. There are about 40 Korean Ties participants on the flight, but there is little interaction. It is hard to sleep on the plane, especially with Amy sleeping sideways between Nancy and I. After a hard landing, we pass rather quickly through immigration, customs, and change some money ($1 US = 1090 Won). We are greeted by KT staffers , throw bags on a truck, and bus to our Hotel, more than an hour away across town on the crowded highway. We are staying at Hotel Lotte World, in the Chamshil district of Seoul. We quickly throw our bags in the rooms (Steve and Dale in one room, Nancy and Amy in the other), then meet a group in the lobby to look for a quick dinner. There is an ongoing strike by hotel workers in Korea, so all the hotel restaurants are closed. One of the KT staffers, Young Hae, helps our group find an open food court in the attached Lotte World mall. The mall is huge, it has a big Lotte department store, three floors of specialty shops, Magnet discount store (like a K-Mart or Wal-mart), plus an amusement park, an ice rink, a swimming pool, and a wedding hall. We go to the food court in Magnet because it is still open after 9pm. Young Hae helps communicate our food orders. Our family splits some mondu soup and bulgogi. Later we wander the store a little. There are easily ten times the number of clerks staffing the store to assist customers than there are in the U.S. They are very polite with a lot of bowing. We see no T-shirts with Hangul characters anywhere, only Roman characters and English language T-shirts. (Nancy and I had a similar observation when we were in Japan in 1998.)

We have a 6am wake-up. I slept well, considering the 13-hour time change. We board one of two red-and-white tour busses and drive to the 63 Building, a skyscraper that was once the tallest building in Asia. (We are assigned to a bus group. Our "purple" group has the pre-teen and younger teenagers for the most part, while the "red" group has more older teenagers and adult adoptees.) We have a Western-style breakfast. Nancy and I sit with the Halls and Kapp-Serotoffs. We have an orientation talk about our tour, are introduced to the staffers (Becca Piper, Heather Ames, Pat Halladah, Kathy Beck, Joy Hanson, Young Hae) and guides (Mrs. Oom and Gale Hong). Then each family gets up to introduce themselves and tell a story about themselves. We told about when Dale's first-grade class learned to sing "Frere Jacques" in French, Dale sang it to them in Korean, except he didn't know any Korean words, so he made it up as he sang. For Amy, we note that she has studied beginning Korean and impressed us the day before by reading the Hangul signs at the Baskin-Robbins stand.

Our first official stop of the tour is Kyongbok Palace, the Chosan Dynasty palace. We see an anthropological museum and the palace buildings. The grounds cover a very large area. We then drive by the Blue House (the Korean presidential residence) on our way to our lunch restaurant. The boulevards of many streets are lined with sycamores and with ginko trees having a unique leaf-covered limb form and shape. At lunch we had bulgogi at a restaurant specializing in beef. The cooking is on burners right at the tables, a common format in Korean restaurants. About 5 or 6 boys (Dale, Scott, Jon, Danny, Mike, Steve) have started to do everything together, such as sitting together at the back of the bus and eating at the same table together. So far, the girls have a smaller group and stay closer to their parents.

In the afternoon, we go to the East Gate Market. There are huge mounds of merchandise in countless rows of shops and stalls along very narrow aisleways and alleyways. Both Amy and Kelsey buy hanboks (the colorful traditional Korean dresses) and are very excited about it. Elsewhere in the market, we buy some grapes from an older woman at a fruit stall. She speaks no English, but lets Nancy and Joleen know her approval of having adopted Korean children. She gives us some plums as a gift. The weather is sunny, hot, and humid. We appreciate the few shops that are air conditioned and also the a/c on the bus.

Back at the Hotel, the boys go off by themselves both before and after supper, visiting some stores in the mall and also the arcade. The G's and the Meiers' and some of the Lyons have a western supper at a TGIF. We sit at an outside table, which is great for people watching outside the busy shopping mall.

I didn't sleep well after 4am, finally got up a little after 6am. I went walking with Nancy and Amy around the outside of Lotte World at 6:45am. We had breakfast in the room: pastries from the grocery store in the basement of Magnet discount outlet, the huge grapes from East Gate Market, and coffee courtesy of Joleen, who brought a coffee maker in her luggage (since coffee in Korea can be either hard to find or expensive).

Our first bus trip of the day was to Insadong, an upscale street featuring fine crafts, galleries, and antiques. Our most memorable purchase was "chops", handcarved signature stamps. Amy's knowledge of Hangul was invaluable at the "chop" shop in making sure the spelling is correct for the Korean names for Dale, Amy, Scott, and Kelsey. We also watch the boys play the popular dance machines at a video arcade. The models go by several names, including "Dance, Dance Revolution" (or "DDR") and "PumpItUp". For lunch, the Meiers and Dale go to a McDonalds', while Nancy, Amy, and I tried a traditional tea room in a narrow alley, "The Old Tea Room". Delightful flute music, a/c, fine handcarved wooden furniture, antiques, pets, etc. A soothing change from the cacophony of the street scene. We have sweet red bean sherbet and iced green tea. Great!

The War Memorial building is next. The displays covered wars and invasions from ancient times, but especially the devastating 1951-53 Korean War and the cataclysmic suffering resulting. The Memorial was a well done monument and illuminating.

The weather was not very hot and humid, over 90F. The next stop was Itawon shopping district. This district is noted for bargains on clothing, luggage, crafts, toys, etc. The kids bought CD's of Korean music groups: H.O.T., Turbo, ... Dale also thanked me for buying him some Adidas shoes.

We bussed back to the Lotte World Hotel in Chamshil District. Dale and Scott went for hamburgers at Lotteria. Amy wanted Korean food, so Nancy, Amy, & I went to the food court in Magnet again. To let the cashier know what food we wanted, I would point to a picture at one of the cooking counters and ask the server to write down the name of the dish. Then I went to the cashier to pay and get a ticket for that food item. After supper, we went grocery shopping again. Returning to the hotel lobby, three middle school girls asked to interview us as part of an English assignment. One question was 'What should Koreans do differently?' Nancy said they shouldn't change their beautiful black hair color! They liked the answer. They posed for pictures for us.

Again sleeping was fitful after 4am, then I was up at 6am and ate breakfast in the room. The bus with 14 families left for Holt at 8am. Traffic was its usual awful congestion and we arrived late, when the Monday morning worship service at Holt was already underway. We heard the end of the bilingual sermon and one song by the great-sounding choir. Hearing God's Word and praise in another tongue is a great reminder of the universal nature of God's promises and blessings, "unto all nations".

After the service, the families met individually with caseworkers. Our caseworker was Mr. Kim Dae-Yul. He reviewed Dale's file with him. There wasn't any new information in the files, but he knew the former counseling department social worker, Mr. Lee Jung Chan, who named Dale (Lee Kyung Ho, which means "broad respect"). Lunch was 1-block away, at a traditional Korean restaurant. Everyone sits on mats on the floor at low tables. The bulgogi is cooked right at the table on hot-rock heated hibachis.

Our family next took a taxi ride across town (40-minute ride, only $9) to Social Welfare Society (SWS). Pat Hallada introduces us to the caseworker, Ms. Mira Lee. SWS is on the 7th floor of Nam Sam Hospital. Amy reviews her file. There is nothing new, but she keeps a couple passport photo "outtakes". We stop at the hospital gift shop for souvenirs and both Amy and Dale are offered donated hanboks. Miss Lee and a van driver take us to Inchon for a visit to the former Myungsung orphanage. It is a long, congested 1.5-hr drive. Then we learn that the building no longer exists, replaced by the ubiquitous high-rise apartment buildings. We do meet Mr. Kim Kwang Yong, the son of the former director. He runs a Community Center in Inchon. We see photo albums from Myungsung and have a nice visit. We then drive by the old site on the return to Seoul. After another >1-hr drive back to SWS, we take the efficient subway back to Lotte World Hotel and arrive just in time for the group pizza party. There was a lot of story-sharing on the trip and the restaurant. That evening, we repack for our morning train trip Kyongju and beyond, storing some of our gear in the Hotel until we return.

We are on the edge of a typhoon, so it is very rainy early in the morning. We load luggage on the buses at 7am (they will meet us in Kyongju), then board temporary buses to the Seoul train station. On the train, the boys are all sitting together, and most of the girls are together also. The countryside is pretty and green, a welcome change from the totally urban environment of Seoul. There are plentiful ricefields in the bottomland between the hills. In fact, 100% of the bottomland is cultivated everywhere we go. In addition to rice, we see grapes, orchards (with individual pear fruit wrapped in paper while on the tree), corn, radishes, and many other vegetables. No livestock seen. There are almost no farmhouses. The farmers must live in the many small towns, nearly all with high-rise apartment buildings. After 4-1/2 hours, we detrain at Kyongju, the capital of the ancient Shilla Kingdom. We are bussed to the Sokkuram Budda Grotto, a cave with a 4-meter stone seated Budda, surrounded by other statues carved from the granite grotto walls. The scenic overlooks were also impressive, reaching to the Eastern Sea (Sea of Japan).

Our hotel, the Concorde, was on the shore of Punam Lake, a famous resort area with a row of multistory upscale hotels lining the shore. The kids loved their first swim of the trip. (This pool only required swim caps for the girls, not for the boys. Later pools will require caps for boys as well.) That evening is a buffet dinner, including good kalbi, salmon, and a large selection of dishes. Later in the evening, there was a parent meeting and sharing. (The kids had one a couple nights earlier.) Among the grown-ups, there was an odd assortment of impressions after Seoul. Some found the Koreans in Seoul unsmiling and rude, while others called them warm, friendly, and hospitable. Some concluded from their encounters that Koreans were narrow-minded and ethnic-centered, while others found them very accepting. While we parents met, Joy Hanson and Gale taught some of the younger kids to play Korean jacks, which is neat game requiring quickness and dexterity.

Nancy and I got up at 6am for a walk. We went to a tourist plaza/park and to a trail along Punam Lake. We also saw our first Rose of Sharon bush (the Korean national flower) of the trip. We bought some breakfast (bread and bananas) at an LG25 store (like a 7-Eleven). We check out and load luggage on the buses (hotel workers must still be on strike).

Our first stop is Pulguska Temple, the most visited Buddhist temple in the country, built in 751. There are many tour buses at the stop. Some ceremonies were going on at different locations on the temple grounds. We took numerous pictures here and Amy bought a dragon necklace. The second stop was Tumulus Park, huge burial mounds for royalty and other important personages. The park was very well landscaped and a pleasure to walk around. We then talked to a nearby Korean restaurant for a group lunch. Again, we sat at the traditional low Eastern tables, sitting on mats. Soup was cooked at the tables: start with boiling beef broth, add vegetables, then beef slices, then noodles. We also have rice, kimchi, and other side dishes. We then have a quick stop at a rice field, then a 90-min bus ride to Pusan and its Haeundae Beach. As incredibly bad as the traffic congestion is in Seoul (11-million people in the city limits), the Seoul inhabitants point to Pusan (4.5 million population) as a place where the traffic is really bad (even fewer roadways per vehicle). We stay at the Westin Chosun Beach Hotel, very upscale and expensive (a cup of coffee is $8). The boys go to the indoor pool (swimcaps required for all) and we take Amy and Kelsey to the beach. The undertow makes swimming a little tentative, but the girls liked jumping in the waves at the shoreline. We then moved to the pool, which is fed by hot spring water piped from 800 feet beneath. It is about 90 degrees F and proudly noted as "radium rich". We notice at poolside that the boys and the girls on the trip are doing more and more activities together.

We are bussed 1 hour in Pusan to Chagalchi Fish Market, a fascinating place: live fish, dead fish, dried fish, restaurant tables right next to the swimming fish. Street vendors sell all kinds of catch, too much to completely list - skipjack, squid, octopus, mackerel, shellfish, crab, sea worm, sea cucumber, ... At the International Market across the street, our kids (Dale, Amy, Scott, Kelsey) rebel and don't want Korean food, so we take them to a Burger King. Nancy and I have red bean sherbet (shaved ice, sweet red bean jam, and cut fruit). We then get fried mondu from a street vendor. Skip then takes the boys to an arcade (includes the popular DDR) while Joleen, Nancy, Amy, and I shop the hundreds of stalls and small shops at International Market. Amy buys hair accessories, Nancy buys writing supplies. We then have another 1-hour bus ride back to the Hotel. The kids continue to party in the back of the bus.

Nancy and I go for a walk at 6:30am on Dongback Island, now a city park and long since filled in to a peninsula next to our Hotel. We walk up rocky headlands, then on walking paths in the park (~1 km). There are lots of people walking or jogging. We next walk along the beach, returning along a row of shops and cafes. Coca-cola has an obvious concession here. Our morning visit is to an elementary school. We walk by some classrooms and through some others. We wear booties over our shoes, while the students all wear an indoor sneaker/slipper while their outside shoes are neatly filed on shelves by their classrooms. The building is less than 2 years old, with 1400 students in grades 1 to 6. The building design is impressive, with superb cross ventilation through open windows to keep things cool. The principal tells us the whole neighborhood is new, with high rise buildings housing 100,000 population where nothing existed by hillsides 5 years ago. The students are very outgoing and responsive, so much so it surprises Guide Gale. We have a program with the 6th graders, exchanging welcomes and gifts. Our kids have a great time exchanging questions and answers with the 6th graders (school year, school subjects, sports, etc.). Some of them are very good with English. Following our visit, we take a Korean Ties group photograph outside the school.

Lunch is at a classy restaurant with a Korean buffet. The meal has lots of choices and is a great presentation. I especially like the cold noodle soup on a hot day, plus numerous fish dishes. It is also a tribute to our staff and Mr. Hong from Holt, because they had to scramble to get a new place at the last minute for the lunch to keep us on schedule. Our next stop is Sung Ae Won Orphanage. The wife of the Director presents the history of the orphanage, then we visit the 6 rooms, each with about 12 children, from a few months old to 2 years. The visit was a big hit, to spend time with the little tikes who appreciated the interaction. It was also very emotional for the parents, reminding them of their children years ago, and emotional for our kids, spending time and forming attachments with the children. Since we came at the end of afternoon naptime, we left a lot of crying behind us.

We return to the hotel for about two hours of free time. I join the Back Seat Boys for some bodysurfing on the beach. The undertow is barely noticeable at the time.

Supper is at a Chinese restaurant a short walk away. (We learn later there are many Chinese restaurants in Korea, perhaps like there are a lot of Mexican restaurants in the U.S.) Not surprisingly, these Chinese dishes are more familiar to us than most of the Korean dishes we have experienced on this trip. After supper, many kids and some parents go to an adjacent district with arcades and shops. While the kids challenge DDR, we buy a yellow Korean melon for breakfast. It was a pleasant, mild night for the walk back to the hotel, with many people quietly sitting in the beach area. There were also people launching fireworks over the beach that they had just purchased from vendors. From Skip and Joleen's side of the Hotel (they always had better views than Nancy and I at each hotel), we saw small fishing boats with lights working together to fish for some kind of catch.

We are up and finish packing for an 8am departure. It will be a long trip up the east coast. Amy spent last night with Kelsey and Joleen. We board our buses for the long trip. To pass the time, Gale tells stories, talks about her life, the Back Seat Boys, Seoul Sisters, and other group members sing karaoke, and we learn the Korean folk song "Ariang". The scenery is spectacular - rugged coasts, steep hillsides, sandy beaches. The further north we go, the higher the mountains and the more military presence is noticed. Many beaches are fenced with barbed wire and guard posts. There are signs along the roads warning of North Korean infiltrators. There are also more monuments and cemeteries from the Korean War. Closer to our Mt. Sorak destination, we stop for supper. The restaurant specialty is mushroom bulgogi. Mushrooms are a specialty of Kangwon-Do Province. Our dish has 3 or 4 kinds of mushrooms.

The Sorak Park Hotel is very scenically located, part way up a mountain road. The kids go to Talk Time while Joleen, Skip, Nancy, and I check out the Casino briefly, then walk down the hill to a small plaza with a few shops, restaurants, and arcade. The sky is clear and the moon nearly full, a great evening for relaxing.

This is our clearest and sunniest day of the trip. Nancy and I get up early to walk, but it is already hot and sunny. We walk up the road, accompanied by dozens of dragonflies. There is a small stream the road follows and some good mountain views. We go as far as the Kensington Hotel, stopping to watch a game of 5-on-4 soccer-tennis.

We return to the Hotel and have a good Korean+western breakfast. We are bussed to Mt. Sorak National Park and take the 40-passenger cable car up Kwongumsong Mountain. From the cable-car terminus, a rugged but heavily traveled trail leads past a small temple and up to a rocky granite peak. There are majestic views of the nearby mountain ridges as well as the coastline and Sokcho City. Dale goes to the top twice, Nancy once. The day is very hot, reaching 34C (93F).

The busses return to the hotel briefly, then Dale, the Meiers', and a large contingent of families go to a water park and baths. A smaller group (16) including Nancy, Amy, and I go to Naksam Temple, followed by Naksam Beach. The temple was uncrowded, maybe owing to the heat. The tranquility added to the beauty of the grounds. We hiked to a hilltop with a giant standing (enlightened) Buddha, looking out to sea, protecting the country. We then headed downhill to the beach. The Beach was pretty full, even though it was only the second day it was open for the season. Nearly everyone rented a beach umbrella for protection from the sun. There wasn't much surf, but Amy and Min still spent time bodysurfing.

I picked up some fever and chills late in the day, so I napped until our supper at the hotel restaurant. We were served beebimbop (rice and mixed vegetables), nicknamed "Korean risotto". The vegetables were all local specialties, spinach, mushrooms, herbs, etc.

I feel better after 10-1/2 hours of sleep. We just have some snacks for breakfast, then pack and leave. The first hour of the ride features spectacular scenery as the busses first wind up, then down the curvy mountain roads. There is heavy traffic in the opposite direction. We hear that the usual 5-hour trip from Seoul is taking 24 hours on this Constitution-Day holiday weekend due to the congestion.

After the mountains, we go through a hill-and-valley country which looks like West Virginia, but maybe a little higher and steeper. All the bottom land is cultivated - rice, corn, etc. We have two service stops on our way to Ch'unch'on. At the Children's Center, we are guests of the local Holt support organization at a big buffet luncheon. Other guests included President Rev. Song (the head of the national Holt organization) and the vice-governor of the Province. The local organizers were some of the most hospitable we have met out of the many pleasant encounters we had during our two-week tour.

The next stop is St. Mary's Home in Ch'unch'on, a maternity home for unwed mothers. About 20 or so young woman, ages 16-20, are present for a Question-and-Answer session by each group. The unwed mothers asked questions that focused on how Korean adoptees are accepted in U.S. society. They wanted to communicate "I'm sorry" to the children they would soon be placing for adoption. They could not raise a child out of wedlock in their current conditions and environment (stigma, guilt, economics, etc.). Our adoptees (mostly the adult ones) assured them they understood and only had kind thoughts. They asked whether it was OK to meet birthmothers later in life. The response was frequently no because the future family of the mother would likely not be aware of a past baby born out-of-wedlock. The visit was emotional, but very informative and meaningful.

Heading to Seoul, we are caught in continuous traffic congestion, as the whole country seemed on the move for the holiday weekend. Our trip lasts over 4 hours, finally arriving at 10pm. Vendors sell sweet corn and rice cakes between the lanes of traffic crawling along the road. At service stops, we buy junk food and fried potatoes. The kids do very well on this trip, happily chatting and playing music in the back of the bus.

Only a little over half the bus makes the 8am departure for the Korean Folk Village. The Village is a recreation of 16th century Korean village life. I had heard it was a good exhibition, but the experience was even better than expected. There were reproductions and/or enactments of farmhouses, kilns, pottery crafts, herb medicine, silk production, papermaking, etc. There were also acrobats and dancers and a great food court with ancient dishes. Nancy, Amy, and I had noodle soup and assorted pancakes (batter-fried zucchini, fish, and bean paste). Amy bought a beautiful calligraphy painting on silk with her name. (Appropriately her given name, "So Ra" in "Yoon So Ra", means "bright silk".) On the trip to and from the Village, Guide Gale gave interesting briefings on living in Seoul, including high-rise condominium apartment ownership and garbage disposal in a metropolis of 20 million. (This explained while we saw so few trashcans in public. Disposal fees are by volume, so everyone is responsible for their own trash. When out in public, they mostly end up taking their trash home to dispose of it.)

In late afternoon, the four of us began our home family visit. We were introduced to Mr. Pyo Seok-Juong, who drove us to his house, about 30 km away, near the airport. Traffic was so heavy, especially near our hotel (due to the busy shopping mall and theme park) that we could appreciate the efforts the host families undertook to host the families in our tour group. After a little sightseeing at a park along the Han River and driving by the National Assembly building, we drove to his home in the KangSo neighborhood. It is an older, more authentic Seoul neighborhood, densely filled with some houses and some small low-rise apartments. There is some remodeling/renovation in the neighborhood, but not the wholescale tearing-down and high-rise construction of other districts. We meet Mr. Pyo's wife, Kim Eun Gu, his 2nd year high school son, Pyo Young Hoon, and 2-year-old foster child. Their daughter, 3rd-year high school student Pyo Youn Houng, was still at school (until 8pm on a holiday) and would join us later. The family also invited 5 young American missionaries attached to their local Mormon Church to be dinner guests and help with translating. The missionaries' tours ranged from 2 days to 2 years, with David Decker (a Material Sciences major at U. of Utah) serving the longest and doing most of the translation duties. Supper was gingseng chicken soup, a very popular summer dish. I'm glad we had the chance to sample such an authentic Korean meal. Our side dishes included 2 or 3 kinds of kimchi, plus pickled garlic. The Pyo family had served as foster parents 10 times and have photos and letters connected with all of them, including a Michigan family.

After supper we toured the neighborhood. We climbed a hill to a tiny local park. Due to the steepness, it was a 3-tier affair. It included swings, slides, basketball area, small soccer field, and a gazebo where men were playing board games like Go. We then went to the local market area, still open and busy at 9pm on a holiday. Our kids were treated to ice cream and rice biscuits. We returned to the Pyo home to visit and present gifts before leaving for the Hotel. A wonderful visit with a hospitable family. I felt that the foster family that Dale had (who could not be located by the agency) must have had a house and neighborhood similar to this when he was in Seoul 14 years ago.

I sleep in until 7:30am. Today is a free day. Again I appreciate the coffeemaker that Joleen packed from home. Some of the kids (Amy, Kelly L., Dale, Scott), plus Joy Hanson, went to a hair salon in the mall (Pro-Hair) to get modish haircuts and hair highlighting. If our kids were students in Korea, they would be expelled from school, because Korean public school children cannot color their hair, wear makeup, or wear large jewelry. After a burger lunch at Lotteria and looking around the mall, I left the rest of the group and walked 20 minutes to Olympia Park, the 1988 Olympics site. The Park is huge, almost a square mile. I only walked through the Gate, Plaza, and Gardens, not by any of the sports venue buildings. I also climbed an earthenworks Fortress to get a view of the area. On the way to Olympia Park, I walked along the broad, modern boulevard street. But returning, I walked a block parallel, along a much narrower street filled with shops and restaurants, and also past a couple bulldozed blocks cleared for new construction. I thought we were fortunate to visit as much authentic, older Seoul as we did, for much of it has been torn down and replaced by the high-rise offices and condominium apartments in this very densely populated city.

For supper, we are bussed to Korean House for a buffet banquet of Korean specialties and a 1-hour performance by folk and traditional musicians and dancers. There was lots of picture taking since everyone was more dressed up and many kids and woman wore hanboks. Dale and Amy looked great in theirs. The buffet food included some more unusual items for Western palates, such as eel, octopus, and jellyfish. During the performance that followed, even the usually squirming kids were captivated by the music, dancing, and costuming. It was another great memory among many memories of this trip.

There is lots of packing first thing in the morning. Later, Skip and I take a walk around the outside of the Hotel and Mall to shoot some photos. We check out of our rooms at noon and store luggage until a 3:15pm departure for Kimpo airport. Nancy, Amy, and I have a farewell red-bean sherbet at Rainbow Cafe in the mall. Dale and the other boys are on their own for a lot of hours. Finally, we are bussed to the airport and say farewell to Gale, Becca, Heather, Joy, and the other staffers. Kris Skivington and Kathy Lyons were selected to escort 2 Holt babies on our flight to Chicago and their new homes. The babies are fussy for a few hours, then fall asleep for much of the flight. Jimmy Lyons holds Kim Byung Soo on the seat next to mine for some hours. Byung Soo will go to the John Elliot family in Indiana, in the Muncie area. The Skivingtons escort Kim Chen Jin to a family from Memphis, Tennessee.

Customs/Immigration is very fast in Chicago. Our domestic gate is across the aisle from a McDonald's, so that is our first U. S. meal in two weeks.