Photo Shoot

Sneak peek at today's photo shoot.

It was a loooong day for these little kids and they pretty much soldiered through. Started at 1 and ended around 5. Then the little girl has to come back tomorrow for more. She is 3 and the boy is 4. Pretty much the cutest things ever.

Western food FAIL

So Koreans sometimes try to adapt Western foods and things go very, very wrong. Remember when I was teaching and we made the canapes from hell?

Well, today we saw this gem of a commercial from Outback. Blueberry steak. Yes, that would be steak with blue cheese and blueberry dipping sauce. Gross.

If you don't believe me you can check out the commercial here.

Extreme Hoarders

And, here's the downfall of the clothing industry...

Piles and piles of clothes.

I'm so glad my parents have so graciously offered to let us store this x 50 in their home. Kidding. Kind of. :)

CLOTHES Are Here!!!

Well, for our Dino Bebe clothing line to be a success, I guess we'd need some clothes, right?

Weeellll.... a special delivery from China arrived Monday morning.

CLOTHING SAMPLES!!!!!

So many, many clothes.

These are the coats alone. (Kinda wish my actual wardrobe looked like this.)

Unfortunately, these clothes are not going to be available for quite awhile as these are Fall/Winter clothes. When we return to the States, it'll be the Spring/Summer wholesale market selling time. Majorly crossing our fingers that we'll have some Spring/Summer styles available to us so we can hit the ground running when we return home. We'll have a better idea tomorrow when SangKwun arrives in Korea.

Anyway, last night was spent drinking wine and creating adorable little outfits. If we can make it happen, this could be the dream job. :)

Here are a few of my faves:

So what do you think???

Oh and we've got a Facebook fan page up and running (sorta ~ as in the page is up but I don't update it almost ever. Okay, never). But if you're on Facebook, do us a favor and give us some "like". The name is "Dino Bebe USA". I promise I'll put some pictures on there as we make progress.

Dual Identity

Check it out!

Korea Adoption Law Change

Korea passes law to change adoption policy.

Highlights from the article:

• The revised law is expected to shift adoption policy from “adoption promotion” to “family preservation.”
• The new law will also expand rights for single mothers and adoptees. Under the law, adoptees will gain greater access to birth records and women will have a seven-day period to deliberate on whether to keep or relinquish their child. Korea currently has no such limitation.
• The law also strengthens oversight of adoption procedures; makes birth registration mandatory, to guard against secret adoptions; and brings Korea into line with international standards for the care of children.

In a past post I've talked about how single mothers aren't treated very well in Korea. While this law may make adoption a little more difficult for foreigners, I think it's a good thing to allow mothers to 7 days think (still seems short though) before they give up the child forever. I've heard awful stories about single mothers being tricked into giving their babies up for adoption and once they realized the deceit being told they already signed the papers so they had no choice.

Also, I know I'm incredibly lucky to have been able to reunite with my entire birth family. So many adoptees have had a difficult time finding their families. Hopefully this law will make the process a little bit easier.

This new law seems like a very good, necessary step in protecting the rights of the overlooked.

Ahem...

We have a little announcement to make. I've been holding off on going public with this until I knew that it was going to happen, for sure. Based on recent conversations, all signs point to YES.

For those that talk to us regularly in real life, this isn't really new news. But for our virtual friends and followers...

Mark and I are embarking on a business venture.

Yep, we're going to attempt to open a business and be our own bosses. (Which is scary, because rumor is that I can be quite the perfectionist task-master. Do this at your own risk, Mark. Just kidding... kind of.)

As most everyone knows, my birth family is heavily involved in the clothing/fashion industry. My Birth Father has a clothing factory in China and SangKwun runs a wholesale children's clothing line, Dino Bebe. And it is awesome.

Here are a couple of shots of their wholesale clothing store in Guangzhou, China.

Mark and I were looking through their catalogs and said to ourselves, "Wouldn't American kids look SO CUTE in these outfits?" (Maybe those were my words more than Mark's...) So we started talking to Birth Father and SangKwun about the possibility of opening an American branch. But up until recently, it was just that... talk.

Once our Korean classes finished, Mark and I decided if we want to make a run at this, we need to show we're serious. So we've spent the last couple months creating a business plan in both English and Korean ~ with a lot of help from Mark's amazing language exchange partners, researching every angle of of the wholesale clothing industry ~ something we honestly started out knowing very little about, contacting potential sales reps, creating an LLC and trademark, and more.

Oh yeah, and we've finally got a website up and running. The pictures aren't the best as we didn't have the originals to work with, updates will be coming soon. Promise.

Check it out: http://www.dinobebeusa.com/

A few biz details... we plan enter the market with a focus on girls clothes only (in the 2~8 age-range). Baby and boys clothes will follow. The clothing will be sold wholesale... which means we will sell directly to retail stores and boutiques. So, at least initially, we won't have a storefront open to the general public. (On a side, sales-y note... if you have a favorite boutique that you'd like to see Dino Bebe clothing in, please let us know. We'll love to contact the owner about making the brand available to you.)

So that's the real reason we've been sticking around Korea. We had a great discussion with Birth Father the other day about factory sourcing and import/export fees and SangKwun will be coming to Korea in two weeks so we can finalize our final Spring & Summer 2012 line, create our very own U.S. catalog, and nail down logistics and final details. If all goes well, we should be on a plane soon very after, bringing Dino Bebe to the States!

I can't believe this is actually happening!