Seoul

Sheref arrived safely in Seoul. He said his flight was as good as a 15 hour flight can be. He was quite impressed with Korean Air; his comment was that "they were incredibly polite, and served unlimited alcoholic drinks and Bibimbop for dinner -- I can't complain!"

He arrived in Seoul around 5 pm Monday (Seoul time -- they are 14 hours ahead of EST), breezed through customs, and met his very nice driver, who drove him 90 minutes through Seoul to his hotel. Sheref said he was impressed with the sheer size of Seoul. That evening he found dinner, watched the World Series, which apparently was on television in the lobby of his hotel. He said his hotel, the Sheraton Grande, is very swanky and hosting the International Society of Hand Surgeons this week. Good luck for anyone suffering a hand injury in Seoul this week, I suppose.

On Tuesday, Sheref had his city tour, which was arranged by our adoption agency. His tour guide was a premed student, who was very happy to find out Sheref is a pediatrician. Sheref said what was booked as a 3 hour tour turned into a 6 1/2 hour tour, because they were getting along so well. The tour guide even called his girlfriend to join them for dinner, and the girlfriend showed Sheref the best shop in Seoul for buying wedding ducks (apparently...not like we would know...complete random aside here, but writing this sentence reminds me of the scene in "Elf" where he storms into the crappy little diner to enthusiastically congratulate them on their self-advertisement that they make the "World's Best Cup of Coffee"...). Anyways, suffice it to say that his tour went well and he is enamored with Seoul.

On Wednesday, Sheref is going to sight-see and shop a bit on his own. He also has an appointment to go to Holt (our adoption agency) and visit with some of the babies in the reception center, as well as meet the Holt social worker.

I will post more as he updates me. He doesn't have a laptop there, and we don't have Skype or anything fancy like that, so I get one set of emails per day. I'll continue to post the info I have. I am excited for Sheref to meet the babies at the reception center tomorrow, as one of them is the daughter of one of my "online friends."

Seoul Airport, Monday evening

Street shopping

Sheref and (I assume?) a palace guard

Changing of the guard at the palace (I am sort of making this caption up -- Sheref told me he saw the changing of the guard, and this looks like I would expect changing of the guard to look...)

Another palace picture