About a month ago, one of my language exchange buddies told me that he was willing to take me to Songtan to find the family house of my birth mother.
This is the same friend who Korean Googled the address and showed it in a field with a school and told me that it probably wasn't there anymore. Well, he turned out to be wrong and right, in that order. He was wrong about the address on the internet; it seems that because the town was redistricted, there is no address that matches THAT address. We asked a few people on the who lived around where the address should have been, but they said we were in the wrong area. Then we went to a real estate agent and he said that the area had been redistricted twice and that the only way we would be able to figure it out would be to go the police. So, my friend was right about the fact that the house probably did not exist anymore.
I was ready to give up, but my friend told me that we should go to the police. The real esate man told us where the nearest police station was located. We drove there, but it was closed; I was ready to go back to Seoul and forget about the whole thing. There was a sign saying the office was closed and it gave a number to call. My friend called and the police gave us directions to another station.
At the second station, it was like deja vu from ten years ago, except this station was cleaner and there was a young cute girl officer, instead of only older men. Both times though, the police were all very kind. As I was looking over my paperwork, the same paperwork that I brought to Korea on every trip, I noticed some writing in black pen. I could never read Korean, but since my friend was there, I asked him what the message said. My friend told me that the police officer from ten years ago wrote me a message saying that he was sorry that he could not find the exact address I had been looking for (the house where I was born tghat had been demolished in lieu of a road) and that he wished me a nice life and that God would bless me.
Today, there were three poice officers. A younger woman, who my friend had spoken with on the phone, a middle-aged man, and an older man. The older man took my paperwork and said that he knew every area in that city both before and after the redictricting. They looked at the paperwork, and typed in some stuff on the computer, and then once again, I was in the same position. I was in a police station in Korea with a police officer asking me if I wanted him to call my birth mother.
This time, just like the last, I said no. This time though, I had a better translator who had thought out the situation better than I could have. Before we got to the station, he asked me one last time if I wanted to contact her today and I told him, "No way." He said that he understood, but that either way, we would get my birthmother's information so hat I could contact her if I wanted to. And he was true to his word.
I know have, in my possession, my birthmother's current home address, her equivalent to a social security number, her husband's name, and his equivalent to a social security number. The police told me that there was no number listed in the database at that time. I was so grateful to the kind police officers and my language exchange buddy.
So, we went to the house. I got a good look; the pictures are below. There was someone home. A light in a downstairs window... but nobody came out and I didn't go in. We probably stayed about 15 minutes, and I kept thinking that maybe she would sense my presence and run out crying out something about her long lost baby girl... but I guess this wasn't a movie and nothing dramatic happened.
Her sense of my presence is about as bad as my sense of hers, because I thought she was gone. I was almost certain that she was living here in Seoul. I even wanted to give up, but my buddy is way more persistent; I guess he had no emotional investment.
So now, I don't know what to do. I had always thought I had a lot of information, but now I have more. I taught my buddy the word, stakeout... maybe that's what I should do. Stake out the place. My friend told me that the special sign we saw on the gate indicated that there was a neighborhood president living at the house. If my stepbirthfather is the neighborhood president, maybe my birthmother would rather avoid the scandal of her very gone adult daughter's return after a 30-something year absence. Or maybe, she has missed me all her life.
Either way, here are the pics of the house:
This is the front of the house. It looks relatively big and is on land that has a five-car carport on the side. That green and white oval sign is the one that says that a neighborhood president lives there.
This is a picture of the backyard.
After class today, we went to Insadong. But before we could see any crafts, we HAD to eat. We went to eat Kalguksu. It was SO delicious. Kalguksu is a noodle dish, with steaming hot broth and clams. Here is a picture of the dish as well as a picture of my teacher, serving it. 
It was a perfect dish for the freezing cold, -1 C, temperature that it was that day. They also had the most delicious kimchi that I have eaten here. I like kimchi, but I usually eat about 3-4 pieces with each meal. However, here, I think I ate a whole plate of kimchi. It was so garlicky and delicious. If you go to Insadong, you have to eat here.
After lunch, we started shopping and walking around Insadong. They have many traditional arts and crafts, as well as some very nice museums and upscale shops. Insadong is also well-known for its shops full of traditional paper, hanji, which is similar to mulberry paper. While we were walking, I also saw this Starbucks. There are SO many Starbucks in Korea, so that's not the big deal. The big deal is that this is the ONLY Starbucks in Korea that says "Suh-ta-beok-suh-Keo-pi." If you know even a little Korean, you know that there is no "f" sound, so Koreans replace the "f" sound with a hard "p," so that actually reads, if you say it really fast, "Starbucks coffee." (Which I thought was hilarious.) Of course, I would not drink coffee there, though, because Insadong is also well-known for its Tea Shops.
We went to this great Tea shop, that I think was called "Tea Time." It was a little off the main street and was on the 2nd floor. I had cinnamon tea, and my teacher had this tea made out of a small melon-sized citrus fruit. (I have a friend whose father makes a jam out of that fruit, and it is univerally agreed that it is too sour to eat plain, but it makes really good marmelade and tea.) Those round colored things, are like crackers. The look heavy, but they are light and fluffy. In fact, if you break them little pieces flurry around, like snow. They are good, but they taste a little like air.
