10 things I think I think.

I hopes it is alright with sportswriter Peter King that I borrow a segment from his weekly column Monday Morning Quarterback, because what better way to relay some of things we have learned, observed, and are feeling right now that with a list...

10.  Apple juice tastes better overseas.  Don't ask me why, just fly to Korea or Russia and taste for yourself.

9.  Seoul is an unbelievably large city.   If they were next to each other, Seoul would make Chicago feel like a suburb.

8.  Koreans are in shape.  We have walked by what feels like approx. 1 million Koreans over the past few days and I don't think one of them was overweight.  Want my educated guess as to why that is?  Try eating with chopsticks. 

7.  Sara and I aren't very well versed in what Korean food is.  When I wrote that we enjoyed some local fare for lunch the other day I lied.  As we were looking through the list of restaurants in our hotel and the mall attached earlier this evening, we realized we actually enjoyed Japanese food that day. 

6.  Korea is far superior to the US when it comes to technology.  It's everywhere here.  The mall has touch screen directories, the drinking water fountains are futuristic, elevators are smarter than I am, everyone (I mean everyone) has a smart phone.  On that note, it seems like Samsung is the phone of choice over here.  You see iPhones, but many more Samsungs that resemble as much of a tablet as they do a phone.

5.  Dunkin Donuts has a strangle hold on the Korean donut market.  You can't turn a corner without running into one (as Jerry Seinfeld would say, not that there is anything wrong with that).

4.  I saw 10 times as many police cars on Hilton Head than I have in Seoul.  Hilton Head population 20,000.  Seoul population 20,000,000.  They are doing something right over on this side of the Pacific when it comes to safety and crime. 

3.  Sheraton is the best brand of hotel going.  We were lucky enough to stay in a fantastic Sheraton in Addis Ababa on our trip to pick up Parker and now once again we are loving life in a Sheraton in Seoul.  These trips are tough enough when it comes to preparing to add a little one to the family and how that transition is going to go, it's makes it so nice to be staying in a place where we are completely comfortable.

2.  Seoul makes Union, KY feel like a melting pot.  If you have never been in or around Union, let me tell you that the majority of the diversity there exists within the four walls of our house.  It has been pretty astounding to us the lack of diversity that exists here.  Of those million people we have walked by in the past few days, we could literally count on 2 hands how many weren't Korean.  I guess that would be why we feel quite a few stares when we are out and about.  Koreans don't seem to be used to non-Koreans walking the streets of Seoul.

1.  Last but not least, we are nervous about tomorrow.  I have said in previous posts, and I will probably say it again tomorrow morning, the excitement is there but right along side of that emotion is an ever present nervousness.  It happens every time.  You might think that since this is our 4th go-round with adoption that those nerves may have subsided.  Au contraire.  It almost seems to be the opposite.  With Lleyton, being our first, the nerves were about how will he react to us and how will we be as parents.  Now four years later and on our 4th adoption, the nerves also include how will he react to the other kids?  How will they react to him?  How will he deal with the separation from the foster family he clearly loves?  How is the plane ride going to go?  How difficult will the language barrier be?  And so and so forth.  God willing, I will be able to report in the coming days and weeks and months that the transition is going smoothly.  And if not...well we have dealt with that before as well, and we are prepared to deal with it again if need be. 

It's now almost 10pm local, which means it is WAY past my bedtime.  Until tomorrow, goodnight from South Korea.

Camden, here we come!