Hyang-gae Orphanage

Saturday morning I had a 7:30 a.m. wake-up call because I was heading to meet Lindsay and Carmela for our visit to the orphanage. We had to take a 2.5 hour bus ride to Umseong, which is South East of Seoul. We arrived around 11:30 p.m., but we had to wait for two of Carmela's friends, so the three of us headed to eat a small meal while we waited. Chris showed up about 20 minutes after we got there and that is when the guy who was bringing us to the orphanage came and picked us up. His name is Dalla and he is from France, but he speaks fluent English and Korean. We felt bad saying, 'no' to eating lunch with the kids, but Carmela, Lindsay and I had already eaten, so we were full. We took the food they served us anyways to be nice and tried to eat as much of it as we could. Just as we were finishing lunch Carmela's friend Jaclyn showed up to the orphanage to help us out.

The kids were adorable at the orphanage and it was sad to think about the circumstances that brought them there and the fact that they would spend most of their life in the orphanage. After lunch our first visit was to one of the girl's rooms where about 7 or 8 girls shared the room. Since most of us brought gifts for the younger kids and because most of the kids couldn't speak English we just played with the younger ones.

These are the first group of girls we visited and they were adorable and fun. They are opening some of the gifts we brought for them to enjoy.

When we finished with the first group of girls we headed to another room that was a mix of young girls and boys. The two oldest girls were eleven and the others were quite young. As soon as we walked in the room they were all over us and freaking out. It was overwhelming, but they were cute and loved that we were visiting them.

This girl took a strong liking to me when we first got there. She was one of the older girls and she was a hyper little bundle of joy.

The two older girls were into for the first 10 minutes we visited them and after that they did their own thing. It was quite funny how different they were compared to the younger girls who couldn't get enough of us.

They decided playing, 'Row row row your boat' with a laundry basket and poles was far more entertaining than we were...I think this is where the age difference came in.

The boys weren't in the room when we got there, so Dalla, who was hanging out with us during the visit said he wanted to wait until they got there before gifts were handed out. When they weren't showing up he left to go find them and was gone for quite sometime. The boys eventually showed up and they were very very young and very very adorable.

This little boy was my absolute favorite kid. I called him JOE because the shirt he was wearing said 'JOE'. After that the name just stuck with him and we all started calling him that.

While we waited for Dalla to come back from looking for the boys who already showed up we had fun with the kids and just hung out.

Joe decided to play dress-up with Chris's hat, which just made him even more adorable.

This kid was cute, but he was cranky and very protective of his sword. He was new to the orphanage, so the surroundings were still new to him.

When Dalla finally got back from looking for the boys we got to give them the rest of the gifts we had brought. It was a mad frenzy when we pulled our gifts out and the kids went crazy. They especially went crazy for the candies Lindsay and Carmela had, but what kid doesn't love candy.

Carmela and Jaclyn are hanging out with the kids as they go through a box of gifts and choose the one's that they want.

Some of the kids after they received their gifts. They didn't put the toys down from this moment on.

We finished at the orphanage at 4:00 p.m. and Dalla drove the 5 of us to the bus station, so we could catch our buses home. We didn't think to check what time the buses would leave after the orphanage, so we ended up waiting for over an hour for our bus back to Incheon. I had a date with my two Korean friends, Sehun and Dave at 7:00 p.m., but since we didn't get on the bus until 5:10 p.m. and it was a 2.5 hour bus ride I had to push the time to later. By the time we got back to Incheon it was past 8:00 p.m. and I had to hurry my butt up to meet them. I cabbed home, changed and headed back out to meet them. Thankfully, we were meeting in Yeonsu, which is a 10 minute bus ride away from me on a good night. I met them just after 9:00 p.m. and we headed to a great Korean bar for some beer, soju and side dishes. The three of us just hung out drinking, talking and playing drinking games. It was a really fun night, but it was another later night.

Today I woke-up earlyish to head into Bucheon to meet up with my friend Alison who teaches in Seoul now. We haven't really had a chance to sit down and catch up on each other's lives since she came back to Korea for year two, so having lunch together was great. We ate dulkgalbi and then headed to Baskin Robbins afterward for some ice cream. We hung out for most of the afternoon and it was much needed for all the catching up we had to do. We've decided meeting up once a month would be perfect for staying in touch and seeing each other.