City Tour and Orphanage Visit

Saturday morning began very early at the subway station. A few friends and I departed to meet up with a local public school class who were hosting a foreigner’s tour. The kids don’t have much of an English program and so they decided to pair each child up with an English teacher and have them give us a tour for the day. Although the kids were nervous to give the tour, they were really excited to get to practice their English with native speakers.

My child’s name was Billy and he was 14 years old. At the beginning, he was very quiet but he warmed up to me throughout the day and we got to know each other very well.

The tour began on a double decker buss that took us around the city. It dropped us off in an area called Taejongdae which is known for it’s rugged beauty of cliffs on the coastline and a beautiful temple.

All along the tour, Billy was telling me well rehearsed facts of the area and I learned that the cliffs have been dated back 120 million years (that seems like a lot, but who knows). We stuck together for the day and I began learning many things about this boy. At one point, I went to the washroom and when I came out, he had bought an Iced Coffee for me… so sweet!

After seeing the cliffs and pebble beach at Taejongdae, we went to a nearby temple that was also having a flower festival. So many beautiful flowers! It reminded me of my grandmother back home, who happens to have quite the green thumb.

Lunch was next on the agenda. We were taken to a nice coffee shop and treated to sandwiches, smoothies, cake and coffee. It was rather surprising that the school has covered all of these costs for us… I wasn’t expecting such a nice spread.

After lunch we went to the Jalgalchi Fish Market, which is one of the largest around. Billy told me that the fish market is a great sign of ‘a mother’s love’ because after the war, everyone was very poor and it was the mothers who would catch and sell fish with the hopes of making some money for their families.

This was a very interesting experience because Billy was able to tell me all about the different fish and which ones he enjoys eating. Unlike me, who was rather squeamish around the moving fish, Billy quite enjoyed them. He enjoys fishing with his father so he showed me all of the fish that he usually catches.

The tour finished around 1pm and it was quick goodbyes as the kids went home. I plan on sending Billy an email with all of the pictures we took together.

After the tour, a small group of us continued onto another area in Busan. This event was for a local orphanage. The plan was to take all of the kids out to a garden and park area and play with them outside. However in the afternoon, the weather decided not to cooperate. It began pouring (and I mean pouring!). The streets were becoming flooded, so we all got into cabs and piled inside of the orphanage. Luckily, there was a large area that we could play in, so all was not lost.

I actually volunteered to go upstairs and play with the young kids. They’re about 2 years old and very playful. At first, they were slightly shy but after about ten minutes, I’d have four small children jumping all over me, playing with my hair and wanting to be tickled.

It was a really nice opportunity to go and interact with these cute kids. They were all very interested in my camera, and so I would carefully let them take pictures. It worked out quite well until one boy tried to smash his Lego block into the lens… then I put it away.

One interesting thing was that one of the boys was dressed in a pink outfit (that the girls wore), he had his hair in a little ponytail with a little charm in it, he had nail polish on and completely appeared to be a girl. The only way we noticed that he was a boy was when he was getting his diaper changed. I don’t understand why they would dress him as a girl… it seems that this would be rather confusing for him as he grows. We wanted to ask the staff, but this is virtually impossible with the language barriers… I guess it’ll stay a mystery.

Otherwise, the kids seemed quite well cared for. There were kids who couldn’t come and play because they had ‘hand, foot and mouth disease’, but luckily the rest of the children were healthy. There was something very soothing about playing with and comforting children who are so young. It’s based purely on non verbal communication and the underlining fact is that they don’t care who you are as long as you pick them up and hold them when they cry. It breaks my heart that these beautiful babies don’t have parents but at least they’re in an environment where most of their basic needs can be met.

At around 5pm the kids were ready for dinner which meant that it was time for us to go home. This was totally fine for me because I was on kid-overload. Although I enjoyed everything I did that day, I was ready to go home and relax!