This is the second part of Day 9, Friday, June 1. We left the Moses Baby Home and went straight to the Illmagwon Orphanage. We had anticipated being at the Moses Baby Home longer, so we were earlier than expected at the Illmagwon Orphanage. We were escorted into the library to wait for Mr. Kim. After about 10 minutes, Mr. Kim arrived to tell us what we would be doing.
Mr. Kim walked us to the dining hall and said some boys would be participating in a music class. We would go watch them for a while. After music class, we would go to the dining hall and help serve dinner. As we walked back to the main building, every single child we passed said, "Hello!" Once a week, airmen from the Gunsan Air Base come to play with the kids. Mr. Kim has encouraged the kids to greet visitors with a "Hello." We entered the main building and walked up to the steps to the recreational room where the music lesson was being held.
As I walked up the steps, a little boy ran up to me, grasped my hand. He said, "Hello! How are you?"
I said, "Hi! How are you?"
He replied, "I'm 10!"
I asked, "What's your name?"
"Tony!", he answered.
"My name is Treasure." I told him. Here's Tony.
We walked up the steps hand in hand. Gina sat down and Tony let go of my hand and sat down beside Gina. He patted the folding chair next to him for Mistie to sit next to him.
Gina showed Tony our family photo album. He sat with crossed legs looking at the album. He would look at one family photo, look up and point at Gina and then point at her in the picture. He was realizing these were pictures of our families. He did that with each of our family pictures.
One boy came by and saw the baby pictures of me and Gina. A teacher told him it was us when we were babies at Illmagwon. His mouth dropped open and he had a look of amazement on his face that didn't leave for several minutes. He sat on stage and stared at us. I wondered what he was thinking. He's in the picture below with the red shirt and glasses.
Oh as I write this post and look at the pictures of these boys, I see my son. They look like my son. They are someone's son. It's more heartbreaking now then it was then.
There were about eight boys in this music class. Their teacher was great. She was full of expression, excited, and loud even with her hoarse voice. You'd have to be loud if you are going to teach a drum class.
While we were listening to the drumming, a teacher who lives with 10 girls in the girls dorm took my mom to meet some of the girls.
I don't know anything about them, but I wanted to show you the pictures my mom took. These were older girls, but I was surprised they had beds in their room.
This girl in the green reminds me of my daughter. My mom spent about 30 minutes with these girls. She enjoyed every second of it.
While my mom visited with the girls, Gina, Mistie and I started helping serve dinner. Of course, this little boy walked in to the dining hall and then left. I had to follow him out to get a picture of him. He just came from tae kwon do class. So cute.
They were having bimbimbap for dinner. My job was to serve the rice. Mistie had to put eggs, bean sprouts, and spinach in the bowls. Gina was serving other vegetables and some brown jello-y substance. We found out later it from Daniel it was acorn jelly. My mom finally showed up to help serve. She didn't last long in the kitchen though. When it seemed as if everyone had gone through the line, she went out to the tables to talk with the kids.
After dinner, we said our goodbyes, took pictures, and then left. All the kids seemed happy. They have 69 brothers and sisters. I'm sure they fight like all brothers and sisters. I saw one boy who had a girl in a headlock as she laughed and screamed. Seemed about right. Most of them have probably been there all their life and do not know any thing different. Mr. Kim wants them to be prepared to live on their own and has a desire to help them with the transition. He said it's like he has hundreds of kids. He has obviously been called by God to love these kids.
We asked Mr. Kim to tell the taxi driver to take us to the public market. The driver dropped us off. Immedialty my mom said, "This is not the public market." We saw a large sculpture and fancy new building. This was not the public market she had remembered.
We went inside the large building.
Right inside the doors you immediatly see a lot of fruits and vegetable of every variety and color. It's so beautiful! Each person has their own booth. Many times they are selling the same thing as the person next to them. You can tell they sit there all day. There are sleeping mats and televisions in many booths.
dd
Of course I had to take a picture by these huge green onions. I really wanted to buy them.
After the fruits and vegetable section, the grains, spices, and bean section was next. I really just wanted to dig my hands into these tubs.
Now I will prepare you for the next portion of the market, even though I had not been prepared. If you are squimish, best to just scroll on down past the next 15 pictures. I had expected to see this stuff at the Busan fish market, a city we had planned to go to before I lost my passport. However, we had to cancel that part of our trip, but I got a little taste of the fish market here.
I think the reason I had been a little unprepared was because we were coming from the last section which had been so clean and fresh looking. I'm not saying this next section was not fresh and clean because it actually was. That's the other reason I was unprepared, there was no smell. So here we go......
There was the fish, octopus, stingrays, crabs, shrimp, and other sea life.
You could get fresh fish. This lady was smiling and hacking off the head of a fish for a man.
Chicken and chicken feet. CHICKEN FEET, people!
Then came the red light area (not to be confused with any other kind of red light area there may be). I think the red lights were to take away some of the harshness of what you were looking at. I can't even tell you what I was looking at because it was parts. However, I will say I no longer get queasy looking at the plastic wrapped steaks in the meat department at my grocery store anymore. I just need a little desensitizing therapy. This did the trick.
I will admit that I walked into the area, took one picture and then kept on walking. After I walked through it, I asked Gina to go back and take more pictures for me. I took the first one and Gina took the rest.
The next section had no red lights, so I was pretty sure the worst was over. Just like in the market where I got my daughter's hanbok, there were place to just go up and order your lunch. You would sit and eat it right at the counter.
You could also just purchase some to go.
We were amazed at this one booth. They sold baskets, bowls, and other containers. You could not even walk through their booth because they had so much stuff.
We came to dried food section. I do not even know what some of this was.
These were dried shrimps and octopus.
As I was walking taking pictures of all the different things I saw, the lady in the maroon apron below was standing with her friend, the shorter woman. She yelled at me to get my attention. I walked over to her and she motioned "picture". She pointed to her friend and herself. She wanted me to take a picture of them. I laughed and nodded "yes". Then the man in green ran into the picture. The woman whose booth I had been standing at had run over into the picture too. All of their booths were very close to each other so I'm sure they are friends. I took their picture. She ran back to her booth and gave me a card. She said, "Email?" and motioned "picture" again. She wanted me to email her the picture. I did it as soon as I got back home.
We were finished with the inside market. We walked outside and across the street. Gina found some toothpicks for her husband. As we walked around some of narrow alleyways, my mom said, "This is the public market I remember."
We walked past this storefront. It is full of garlic cloves. You can't even see the lady sitting in the back of the store. I wonder what she would have said if I just picked up a couple of cloves to purchase. It didn't even smell like garlic.
We were all getting hungry so we decided to take the taxi back to the hotel to eat. I ordered a Coke and a club sandwich and french fries. I got a Pepsi, a glorified ham and cheese sandwich, and fries. There was no bacon on it at all.
Mistie ordered creamy spaghetti. She got what looked like shrimp pasta with clams. Not what she expected either.
Gina ordered fried rice with shrimp.
My mom ordered beef cutlet with fries. It came with a salad and potato soup.
There were just a few other ox bone menu items on the menu and that was it. We weren't nearly as impressed with their dinner meal as we had been with their breakfast buffet. We headed to our rooms after the meal. I journeled a little bit more. Gina and I tried to watch television, but we both fell asleep.
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