Getting out of the city...

On Saturday I went with some friends to an orphanage about 1 1/2 hours south of Seoul.  In Korea, there are several orphanages, and the children are there for numerous reasons.  Many of the children at the orphanage that we visited have parents or grandparents that visit them on the weekends, but are not able to support them living at home.  Some, though, do not have family, and I just feel so badly for them.  The grounds are nice, and there seems to be a lot of support at the school, but having a caring family makes such a big difference.
The orphanage that we visited has about 100 kids I think, but we only really met about 20 or 30 of them.   The kids we met ranged in age from 3ish to about 13.  We pretty much just hung out and played with them all day.  They only speak a very limited amount of English, so it was a bit difficult trying to communicate with them.  There was a little boy who was the youngest one we saw, and he would get so mad when he tried to explain something and we couldn't understand him!  Tough little guy!  We had a really great time, and I am so excited to go back.  The group has an outing about once a month, and right now we are planning on getting something together for Christmas so that hopefully we can give them presents.  Anyhow - look for updates as I get to know the kids better in the coming months.  Here are a few pictures - my camera ran out of batteries, so I didn't get to take many pictures.  :(

This is a picture of one of the building at the orphanage

These are two of the girls that I got to know during the day

Brandon is teaching this kid a little bit of English 

Mariko and me at the beginning of the day.

You can see the orphanage's playground behind us.

This was the whole group of volunteers - great group of people!

It was actually organized by the guy in the green, Danny, on Facebook.

The feel of fall is in the air...

Just a really quick note here to say how wonderful fall is! Yesterday was the first officially chilly day, and today was just as wonderfully fall-like.  I can see the very beginning of trees changing, and the air feels crisp and fresh.  It is a good time to be in Korea, and I am so excited to watch as the colors of fall come out!  Apparently falls in Korea are utterly beautiful, so hopefully I will be posting many photos!  I hope everyone has a great weekend!  (btw - I am going to an orphanage tomorrow with a large group of volunteers.  I will post about it this weekend!)

The Sharing House

The Sharing House was such an interesting experience!  Mariko and I met some other people at one of the subway stations, and then we all headed out to the area where the Sharing House is located.  It had nice grounds, out in the country and was  a great place for these women to be able to relax and enjoy life.  Listening to the woman speak with us - (in the pictures above - the one on the right with the purple pants) was such a privilege.  It was really interesting learning about her life, and so sad to imagine what she went through.  (I wrote a bit about this in an earlier post this month on 8/18 if you need some background info) 

It is always sad to come face to face with tragedies like this, to come to the realization that people are not always good.  The saddest thing today is that the disgrace continues as Japan refuses to acknowledge its role in this atrocity.   There is ample evidence that the government was responsible for the main organization of the comfort women, yet even today they will not dirty their hands with that responsibility.  I am so glad that I had the opportunity to meet the people I did at The Sharing House, and I hope that someday those responsible for ruining so many young women's lives will have the decency to admit to their wrong-doings.  

The collage above has a few pictures from the visit.  The photo with the folded hands states "We must record these things that were forced upon us."  This is the motto for the sharing house, and they have done a wonderful job. 

Under construction...

I am trying to change the look of my blog so it may be going through some strange changes if you stumble upon it in the next few days... bear with me...