Korean Orphanage

A couple of weekends ago, my friend Brooke and I went to Daejeon to volunteer at an orphanage that a friend of mine from my TEFL course helps at. We spent a couple hours there teaching English. The first group of kids were had were elementary age, between 8-12 and the next group was middle/ high school age, between 15-20. It was a lot of fun. The younger kids were really rowdy and even a bit violet towards each other. The older kids were really into learning about fruit and paying attention to what we were teaching. Much more behaved. We played games with all of them and taught a mini lesson. I dont know too much about the adoption system here but from what I was told, Korean children cannot be adopted after the age of two. Once they past two, they are kept in the orphanages until after high school and when they get a job. Some of the even stay during university. A lot of them have at least one parent who is alive but it just unable to care for their child. They even sometimes let the parent come and take the child on weekends. It is a much different system here than back at home.

My short winter break

Over winter break, I spent a couple of days wondering Seoul solo. Here is the experience told through photos.

they asked me to do an interview about being a foreigner for their school

A Korean Wedding

My co-worker Hannah who is Canadian Korea had her wedding in December on New Years Eve. Korean weddings from what I gathered from this experience are quite different than at home. First off, this wedding was held in a big wedding hall called "Wedding Fiesta" and many weddings take place at the same time but in different rooms. You sit down at big tables and most people were dressed rather informal, some people were even wearing jeans. During the ceremony people were walking in and out of the room and some on their cellphones, talking to each other etc. It seemed really rude but I guess this is just normal. There were multi colored lights they used to light up the room when people walked down the aisle and had these really cheesy light up heart  fixtures people held up as the bride and groom walked under it. This whole ceremony thing took about an hour. Following the ceremony you went upstair to a big buffet dinner thing. There was lots of food and everyone just took food and sat down. During the food time, the bride and groom stood on a small stage and cut the cake. After eating, the bride and groom took off their western style dress and tuxedo and put on their traditional hanboks for another much smaller intimate ceremony held in a small room. I failed to mention us foreigners had a part in this wedding. Hannah wanted us girls to catch her bouquet. (nobody else) This is mainly because there is a tradition that if you catch the bouquet you have to marry in 6 months. Her friends are very superstitious so she had us do it. Natty caught the bouquet. This was all staged. Hannah held the bouquet the slowly threw it as us so Nat could catch it all for photos. We also had to take lots of photos together with Hannah and then the whole wedding party. I have no photos of this but she said hopefully she will have them in about a month. I will post them later. I have a few of my own photos to share.

their baby Jordan

설날 Happy Lunar New Year

traditional korea game

celebrating the new year

Its the year of the dragon! Today is the biggest holiday celebrated in Korea. Its seolnal or chinese new year.  At school on Friday, we celebrated with our students.

Nat and I in my "honeymoon" hanbok

Dom, Austin and I

me with ocean class

me with orchard class

making dumplings

hanbok girls

they wanted me to wear this hanbok instead

children bowing before they receive money

happy faces after getting there money (about $1)

hanbok teachers

kindergarten

Katie

Monica, Lina, Jamie

Update for post Korea

Happy New Year everyone! I didnt do much for NYE, just went to Seoul with some friends. Not much has been going on that is why I havent been writing. I did want to mention that is is officially booked. I am leaving Korea on March 9th and heading to Turkey. I will travel around Turkey and possibily go to another country if its easy enough. I fly to NYC on April 3rd and probably will stay in NYC for a day or two and then head back to Boston around the 5th-7th! Once I get home, I had lots of ideas on what I am going to do but nothing is set in stone yet so you will have to stay tune to hear about it!

Cant wait to see you all soon!
Only....28 more days of work!!