The conference went by in a blurr. A good blurr as it turns out. I'll try to sum it up.
first day (Monday) in Korea, was brief, I arrived around 5pm with a bay area friend/adoptee, met up with another adoptee at Incheon Airport, so three of us took a bus to Lotte. We arrived around 8pm. Immediately I was greeted by another bay area friend who was supposed to be my roommate for the week, turned out that he didn't have room for me so I had to crash with one of his friends for one night. The whole living situation turned into a disaster. The 2nd night I stayed with another bay area friend and the 3rd night I was supposed to stay with another random person that someone else knew. Eventually I just ended up staying with one person but the whole time I was living out of my suitcase b/c it was never a for sure thing until about the 4th day I was in Korea. Very annoying situation.
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| Bus to Seoul after a 13 hour flight (Hilary and Robin) |
My first night I went out with a "small" group of IKAA conference peeps (about 20 of us and then grew to about 30). I was told staying out would help me adjust to the huge time difference (16 hours from PST). It solidify my fatigue from my trip. I passed out very easily that night. I was out until about 4am. I hadn't slept on the 12 hour plane ride so it was a given I wasn't going to wake through the night. I woke up early to get some breakfast. Every day at the conference they served breakfast between 8-930am. I made it to most of them minus a few b/c of some really late nights.
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| 1st night out in Seoul (Las Vegas, the bar), with Lianne and Robin |
First conference day (Tuesday) I registered, got my schwag, listened to a symposium, ate lunch at a cheap mandu restaurant (Myeong in Mandu) with three other adoptees (one from SF, one from Jacksonville FL, and one from CT), returned back to the symposium, moved my things to another hotel room, went welcome reception, then out to the first social gathering in Seoul. The symposium was interesting at times but really not my type of thing. The topics were obscure, really more for a psychology major or a social major. The speakers presented their data that reminded me of my elementary presentations. I tried to be as understanding as possible but it was hard between the accents and the PowerPoint presentations, and being extremely tired. The first social gathering was about 3x as big as the night before. They couldn't fit everyone that wanted to hang out, which turned out to be a common problem b/c all of the local restaurants and bars could only hold about 80-100 people. The IKAA gathering had about 500 adoptees from 20 different countries.
2nd day (Wednesday) we had to dress nice, attend opening ceremonies, get group photos (takes a lot of time with 500 attendees), had lunch at Lotte, had age break out session (my group was 1982-1984 with roughly a dozen people), played games at "Membership Training" (a Korean term for icebreakers when attending a new university or company), did some work in the hotel room, went to another Hors d'oeuvres gathering, then out to another social gathering (which I made sure to return at a decent hour). Membership training was interesting b/c the games were very childish for what was supposed to be for adults. It was fun to experience games that Koreans played, obviously some were great for a more social setting. Every day at the conference I met new people from all different countries. It was really interesting to see a Korean face but hear a totally different accent. Everyone at the conference was nice and fun to talk to. The Swedish and danish group were the largest after the US, about 80 each in their groups. Only 5 people including myself were from SF bay area that I knew.
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| Former Korean First Lady at IKAA Opening Ceremony |
3rd day (Thursday) was workshops and an evening performance and dinner at Kwanmunsa Temple. I also was a "lucky" as some would say, participant of the "Amazing Race" activity. I was grouped with 3 other adoptees who had never been to Korea before, none of which I knew prior to the game. We ran around Seoul attempting to complete missions. We managed to complete 3 in a span of 3 hours. I had never taken the subway in Seoul yet which was the only mode of transportation we were allowed to take. We could not use our cell phones or talk to anyone from IKAA conference, we had to ask local natives for help. Unfortunately no one in my group knew any Korean (hanguk), which as you can imagine was the biggest inconvenience b/c Korea, even Seoul, only speak korean. Even military did not know english. We asked two different people where a national park was, one of which as an information center, and both were incorrect, needless to say we didn't find this out until we were there, so we wasted over an hour at the wrong location. It was very frustrating. It was was about 90 degrees and 80% humidity. We were ready to die. I was running on fumes by the time the race ended. I hadn't slept more than 2 hours and I didn't have breakfast or lunch so I felt like I was going to pass out. It was rough day.
The visit to the temple was good, the performance was great, but long, and dinner was 100% vegetarian which was confusing for a lot of people b/c they served what looked like beef and chicken, turned out to be soy and tasted awful. However the novelty of the experience was great. The buddist monks were very kind and the temple was beautiful to see.
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| Monks dancing at the Temple in Seoul |
Day 4 (friday) - I skipped the first half of the conference activities b/c I went to visit my Korean adoption agency. I met my foster mother and saw my records. I wasn't allowed to copy of the information, only what they had sent to my parents, which was really disappointing b/c I purposely went their to get the records. Unfortunately I was not able to bring a translator with me so I wasn't able to check to see if their story matched up. I do want to return with someone that can read and translate Korean/english. After I hurried back to get lunch at the hotel with the conference group. I didn't see anyone I knew b/c of the events that were scheduled. After a bay area friend and I visited Damdangmun, an open air market, but just for an hour b/c we had to get back for a performance, the amazing race presentation, and dinner.
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| My foster mother, Mrs. Yang ("Yong") |
Day 5 (Saturday)- I had a very late night (trying to do work from 4am-6am in the hotel lobby), but had to wake up early to get clothes for that night. IKAA had schedule a lot of events that required formal clothes. This bothered a lot of people b/c no one knew they were supposed to pack nice clothes, so people missed out on events due to the lack of information. I rushed back for a asian make up session, but managed to miss half of it (which turned out to be a good thing), then did more work for Nevro in my hotel room. Dinner was Gala sponsored event by Samsung, accompanied by a performance (Korean music and dance), then a social outing that started around 1030pm. Erik arrived that night during the Gala, so I met him after. We went out with the group but did not stay out late b/c he was so tired.
Day 6 (sunday)- closing ceremonies in the morning, packed up and checked out of Lotte. Erik and I had to move all our things over to Backpackers Inside (a hostel about 25 mins from Lotte). We got to the hostel and saw our extremely tiny room. I wanted to laugh but was too tired to manage it. The beds looked like something that should have been in a children's tale, they were so short I don't think Erik fit. The room was so small that they could only fit one small table and the two beds. There was no one to put our suitcases. We crammed everything in there then went to grab lunch. That night was the Closing concert for IKAA. It was a black and white party that we had to dress formal for. Erik didn't end up going due to their strict badge only policy, and the only way he could get one was if he paid for the entire conference registration fee ($320). So erik hung out with people from the hostel. He had a great time though, ate a live octopus (yes ALIVE) and went to some local bars. He told me the octopus struggle before he bit it's head off, its tentacles stretched out across his face before he ate it! EWW! I wish I could have witnessed it. I probably would have screamed though.
It's late so I'm off to bed!
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