3rd Visit!

Hey folks - Jason here blogging...

Today we had the most wonderful day. I have to admit, yesterday's visit with Luci left us pretty bummed. Sure, it was great to see her, but she wasn't in much of a mood to be social. She interacted a little with Heather but mostly acted like she was a little unhappy. We were more than a little depressed last night even though it is pretty easy to empathize with her and rationalize her moodiness towards us.

Today was different. It was fantastic. We started the day with a trip to Itaewon. The US military bases are nearby so Itaewon is fairly Americanized, or at least geared towards American citizens. We hadn't been off the subway 2 minutes and we were ready to get out of there. Funny how we've grown so accustomed to areas that don't see many foreigners. The touristy nature of this area really annoyed us. We were on a mission though. There's a guy outside the Hamilton hotel that paints cloth scrolls with decorative lettering and calligraphy. We got Luci a scroll with her Korean name - Da In - in Korean lettering. We also got her a stamp with "Luci" across the top and the Korean characters for her name on the bottom. Here's a shot of him painting her scroll.


As soon as we got the scroll in hand we got out of there and headed back to Korea. Our destination was Namdaemun market. We've been to 3 market districts so far. At each one, we think it can't get any crazier, but we always manage to find a wierder one. Namdaemun was beyond NUTS. It was a river of people and goods. If you can't find it there, it doesn't exist. I tried to get Heather to eat some fried bugs, but she didn't go for it. Wow.


After scoring a free lens cloth at a camera shop, we went back to Eastern to meet Luci for our 3rd visit. We were so relieved when we met her in the lobby and she quickly looked at us intently. We got to play with her for an hour in a playroom nearby. She was immediately engaged with us. She took no time at all to warm up to me (which absolutely melted my heart...). This girl is a wild one! She played on her side. She played on one foot. She played sitting down... standing up... on her head and one shoulder (seriously). She chattered and grunted. She outfarted me and it rattled the walls and windows. She crawled back and forth to each of us. It was amazing and beautiful and left us in tears with happiness. Here's a few photos of Luci eating my camera's lens cap and playing with us. There's also a video of her crawling to Heather.





And that's it for today. We revisited Choonchunjip for some more fiery dakgalbi (HEARTBURN!!!) and are off to the room to think about Luci.