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Somehow, with the tiny fraction of overlap in our linguistic abilities, we had managed to successfully communicate to Mrs. Lee and Mr. Chang that we had hoped to take Joe to Seoul's Grand Children's Park and Zoo. They seemed to think it was a great idea, and after a long drive back from Imjingak, we arrived there in the late afternoon. Joe enjoyed riding the rides, especially the little coin-operated car rides [Image 128, Image 129]. He had a great time riding the carousel with Carla [Image 130], and riding on a truck ride with Mrs. Lee [Image 131] as well. We all went for a ride in the park's rather large Ferris wheel, which afforded us a wonderful view of the surrounding areas of Seoul [Image 132, Image 133, Image 134]. By the time we walked to the zoo we were really running out of gas, and Tom didn't take many more pictures. The highlight of our visit to the zoo was probably when Carla got to hold a tiger cub [Image 135], although it was pretty clear that the highlight for Joe's foster parents was the quality time they got to spend with their favorite-ever foster child, as this photo of Mrs. Lee and Joe shows [Image 136].
By time we had sufficiently explored the zoo the sun was beginning to set...we had spent nine hours hanging out with Joe's foster parents. We weren't sure what was going to happen next, and Tom, Carla, and Deborah began to speculate on whether they were going to take us back to our hotel or take us out somewhere else. It turned out to be the latter! But of course we didn't mind, not only because we had enjoyed our time with them and really appreciated the way they enjoyed Joe, but also because we were incredibly hungry and they were taking us out for dinner. They took us to a very nice restaurant at the Seoul Tower Hotel, where we dined one last time on traditional Korean fare [Image 137], this time in an exclusive private dining room [Image 138]. Once again, the food was incomparably delicious and consisted of a copious number of courses. The main course was barbeque beef ribs, grilled right at the table and served with a savory sauce, wrapped in leaf lettuce, and eaten with a whole garlic clove. We washed the ribs down with tea, whiskey, and soju, which is a high-octane rice liquor unique to Korea. The meal was capped off by a dish called cold water noodles--long thin bean noodles served in a chilled broth with pears, radishes, hard-boiled eggs, and a kind of thinly-sliced processed meat that resembled head cheese. This was not Carla's favorite dish, in all honesty, but it seemed to have some special symbolic significance so she joined everyone in eating it out of respect for our hosts. In fact, while the rest of the adults had small soup-sized bowls of the cold water noodles, Carla and Tom were treated with the "bowls of honor," massive vessels the size of mixing bowls! We still chuckle thinking about it.
The most emotional part of the evening was when Mr. Chang, over the bowls of cold water noodles and in very broken but impassioned English, toasted us with what we interpreted to be a litany of thanks for our care of Joe and for all the opportunities we would give him as our child and as an American citizen. He was so earnest in his gratitude that we couldn't help but be deeply touched, humbled, and honored. What we couldn't express to him was that no thanks were necessary, because just being Joe's parents is reward enough! His toast was one of the highlights of our trip, and we will never forget our day with Joe's foster parents, how much fun we had, and how much they loved him. It was well after 9:00 PM by the time they took us back to our hotel, and we still remember the wistful look on their faces as we said our goodbyes. It will probably be several years before we see them again, but we want, and feel obligated, to keep in touch with them in the interim. They love our son and they are terrific people.
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