This time next week.....

To say I am getting excited would be an understatement. This time next week I will be in Korea.  I went to the bank today to pick up the little bit of Korean money (wons) I am taking.

I have half my bags packed.  I would say only a 1/4 of it are my own personal items.  The other 3/4 of it are items we are taking for the orphanage, the students we will meet, and medicine.

I packed away my mugshot passport.  I packed anti-diarrhea, allergy, Airborne, ibuprofen, and heartburn medicine.  I tucked all the travel size personal hygiene items I purchase three months ago into my cosmetic bag.  I rolled all my clothes and packed them into the suitcase, only to take them out again because I need something to wear.  I purchased new underwear (yeah I know you probably didn't need to know that, but I'm telling you anyway) and socks.  If we enter someone's house and I take my shoes off, I wanted to make sure I didn't have holey socks.

The only electronic item I am taking is my camera.  My good camera.  The officer keeps trying to convince me to take a small camera, but I really want to take my nice camera so I can try to capture some of what I see and experience.  No phone.  My little Nokia phone would probably blow up in Korea anyway.

The suitcase with items to take to the orphanage contain Chutes & Ladders, Connect 4 Launchers, Memory, un-inflated balls, bracelets, bookmarks, and lots and lots of American candy.  Candy like M&Ms (hopefully they don't melt), Tootsie Rolls (in case the M&Ms melt), butterscotchs, mints, Skittles, and lot of gum.

This weekend I am going to scrub my house clean.  In hopes it will look like that when I come back.  I will go to the grocery store and purchase food for the officer and kids. I will go finish up my last minute shopping for the trip.

There has been a flurry of phone calls and emails.  Are you taking a hair dryer?  How much money are you taking?  How many days of clothes are you packing?  Who is taking the converter/adapter?  
It will all work out in the end.  If we don't have, we'll purchase it.

We are going to leave Wednesday night and drive to Dallas.  We leave Dallas Thursday, May 24th, morning.  We layover in San Francisco for a couple of hours and then fly straight to Seoul Korea.  I believe they are eight hours ahead of us.  I'm probably wrong on that.  We will spend that weekend in Seoul shopping and site seeing.  My mom has international students lined up to pick us up and drop us off in each city.  Many of the students will show us around and interpret for us.  That Monday, May 28, is Buddha's birthday, so I'm sure Seoul is going to be pretty crowded.

We will leave Seoul on Tuesday morning and take the fast train to Gunsan.  We will spend three days in Gunsan at the orphanage.  Last count there were over 70 kids in the orphanage.  It will be an emotional time.

My younger sister informed me there is only one police station in Gunsan.  Gunsan is where the orphanage I was adopted from is located.  You can re-read my adoption story here.  She said, "We are definitely going to that police station and taking your pictures on those steps!"

We will leave Gunsan and head to Busan.  In Busan we will go site see and shop.  We will be going to the huge fish market in Busan.  That should be interesting.  On Monday we will take the fast train back to Seoul and fly home that day.

It's going to be a whirlwind trip.  I know God has some amazing things in store for us.  Can't wait to come back and tell you all about it.