"Please Mama, books"

Yes, this was Juliana's request last night during our after dinner quiet snuggle.

When the children first came to us, we tried books and they were clearly not interested. Andy gets a few books with his naptime routine, but other than that, we haven't pushed books and they haven't pursued them. This of course was quiet worrisome to me, Ms. Book-Eater.

Juliana and I went through three books together last night and she asked for words in English. She has been rather resistent to English, prefering to teach us the Russia rather than learn a new word. So, happy steps forward on two fronts.

Book Shopping

We were very very excited to find a bookstore open and even more excited to find a copy of Winnie the Pooh (in Russian of course) and even more excited, if such is possible, to find a copy of Narnia. This is not The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but a book created from the movie. It looks as if the basic story is summarized and illustrated with stills from the movie. We will donate both to the orphanage.We also found a restaurant that serves yummy borscht. MMMMmmmm.

edited to ponder how I failed to mention the Harry Potter display that we found!

Greetings from Seoul

Here we are, nine time zones and two airports later, enjoying our 5 hr layover in Seoul: free internet, and in a few minutes the showers open.

Our flight to Seoul was lovely, as much as an 11 hour flight can be. The plane was only about half full, so -- even though we had exit row seats -- we were persuaded by the stewardesses to move to empty center rows where we could stretch out. I think we each got about 5 or 6 hours of sleep.

Later today we will fly to Khabarovsk, check in, walk to dinner, and then to bed. We have tomorrow free I believe, and will visit the orphanage on Monday.

Lisa and Derik have been coaching us on pronunciation: Har Bar arsk is the preferred way.

Much too sleepy to be amusing. More later,

Suzanne