Wrapping up

We're back in the States bringing our Korea adventure to a final close. Of course we'll be back for visits, but unless life throws us a huge curveball, we don't plan to live there again.

So we've spent the last couple weeks in Korea saying goodbyes and see you soon's to friends and family. As the final piece of closure, I finally got the answers I sought to questions surrounding my adoption and my family's history.

It's a bittersweet feeling. When I first returned to St. Louis, everything just seemed so quiet and dead. But then, we could walk without dodging people everywhere, can drive anywhere in 30 minutes or less, and the air is just so fresh. Just hanging out in our parents' neighborhood alone, we ran into or saw several people we knew. That sense of community just doesn't exist in Seoul, the city of faceless people. I will miss the people, the excitement, and the food of Seoul for sure, but it's time to re-start our lives in the States.

Obviously, a bit part of starting our lives is launching the Dino Bebe branch. Right now, we're in limbo waiting for my brother to send us the clothes from China.

So that's where we are now. We're back in St. Louis and attempting to re-create a life here. I guess this post marks the end of this blog, as it was created to chronicle our lives abroad and I'm not sure what use it will hold now that I'm back in the States. Thanks for whoever followed us out there. It really was quite a ride and I can honestly say I have zero regrets.

I have no idea whether or not I'm going to miss having a place to throw my thoughts and if I do, I'll update this blog with my new blog site. But that's a big maybe. I was never very good at keeping up with this blog when I was abroad experiencing new things all the time. I'm not sure how interesting my normal life will be or what there will be to talk about.

But for now, 여러분 제브러그를 읽어줘서 감사하고 앞으로 건강하고 행복하게 사세요.

(Thanks for reading our blog and in the future, I wish you good health and a happy life.)

Seoul Subway

Yep, totally going to miss the crazy-efficient Seoul subway system.

Yesterday our friend Ellen came over and we all had lunch with my birth father. We wanted to talk to him about the business and finalize some details and wanted to make sure nothing got lost in translation.

Ellen was amazing ~~ with her help we were able to nail down final details for shipping the clothes, creating labels, etc. Also, because of her, we learned a little more about my birth father.

Apparently he lived in Japan for 4 years when he was getting his business started and is semi-fluent in Japanese. Who would've known?!?!

Name Game

In Korea, when a baby's born, the father's father names the child. There's a great deal of thought put into the name as it must derive from Chinese characters and the meaning of the name is believed to directly affect the child's personality and life path. For this reason, many people consult name experts to help with this difficult task.

My own brother, SangKwun, was given one name at birth, but was taken to a name expert and told his name was not good, so it was changed when he was about 3 or 4 to SangKwun.

As birth father was tasked with choosing a name for his first grandchild, he took this job very seriously. He met with a name expert because he was very concerned with finding a name that would be easily pronounced in both Chinese and Korean.

He came home with three pieces of paper with three different names to choose from. He passed them along to SangKwun and Emily.

I was chatting on IM with SangKwun and found out today that they chose a name!

My future niece's Korean name will be 김태연 (romanized, it's Kim Tae Yun). And her English name will be Claire Kim. (In Korean, the last name goes first.)

She's due to arrive August 20th. I can't express how excited I am to meet Baby Tae Yun/Claire!!!!