The miracle of birth(days)...

"All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."

-Abraham Lincoln

     This past weekend I had the opportunity to once again visit the single mother's home.  Words cannot describe the respect I have for these women.  In Korea having a baby out of wedlock automatically means ostracization.  Their families shun them and if they can get a job they have to keep their child a secret or risk losing their jobs.  Family status is not a protected class here for anything.  

This baby is 8 days old and only weighed 5lbs 8oz.  I cannot believe I was this tiny as a baby! 

Tiny Tiny baby hands and feet!

The woman who organizes the visits picks up donations from the different army bases around the area.  We were able to bring about 15 garbage bags full of baby clothes, diapers, and other baby things.  One of the other woman also brought kits for the mom of hair things, lotion, and face masks.  The mom's requested microwave kettle corn the next time we come.  Its easy to forget that these moms are just normal women. 

 Look at this one's hair!  Her name is Ka-eul which translates to Autumn and she is 5 months old.  Of all the mother's at the home I am most proud of her mom.  This beauty was born with a cleft lip.  In Korea, the norm would have been to put the baby in an orphanage as soon as her parent's saw there was something "wrong" with her.  This mom has stuck it out with her daughter.    

 SOOOOOO Tiny!!!!

This baby was also 8 days old but quite a bit bigger than the other one.   

I just can't get over her hair!

     This weekend was also my friend Rachael's birthday.  We attended a super fancy tea at the Four Season's Hotel followed by ice skating in the city center.  

This is the trolley of goodness, filled with cakes and tea sandwiches.  It was unlimited so we had a personal waitress on standby to fulfill our every cake wish. 

The birthday girl herself! (all of these lovely photos are courtesy of Beth) 

 This is Sally and Joshua.  I work with Joshua and Sally used to work at the school. 

Reggie and Beth 

 and I'm the only one without a significant other thankfully Beth stepped in otherwise this would have been an awkward photo of just me. 

All the ladies! 

I love ice skating and was pleasantly surprised by how easy and nice buying tickets and renting the skates was.    

 I don't know how they edited this but I have to say this is one of the best photos of me ever taken.

I was the only experienced skater in the group, which meant decided to quit long before our time was up.  Which left me to skate laps and stop to say hi at the wall on every pass.   

 This photo was supposed to be of Rachael's friend Darryl.  She just happened to capture me striking a pose skating past in the background.

The rest of these photos are random photos from the past couple of weeks.

I'm slowly figuring out cooking here.  It also helps that broccoli is somehow in season and cheap.

 My co-worker Madonna used me as a human sketchpad to design her new tattoo.  In exchange she designed one for me.  What do you think?  I don't know if I'm quite brave enough to get it done but if I was to get a tattoo this is what I would get.

Two weeks ago we went in search of cake in Seoul.  Sally has a car, so the four of us squished in the back seat.  

 We had received major stares from the Koreans at the cake shop.  Who would ever get one piece of cake each?! The Koreans get one piece to share with 6 people and leave half the cake on the plate.

This is the 5 minutes later picture.

This is one of my favorite students Irene.  This was her last day as she's moving to middle school.  

And her partner in crime, Sophie.

This week we finished intensives.  Intensives are different from regular classes because the kids come in the morning and come everyday for 3 hours instead of every other day for 2.  We had a really good group of kids and I honestly enjoyed teaching these classes.  On the last day I received this letter from one of my youngest and sweetest students.   

Thursday and Friday are level test days so Beth and I were able to finagle both days off.  Which is fantastic considering we have Monday through Wednesday off for Lunar New Year.  In this amazing week long vacation Beth and I are heading off to Tokyo.  We plan on seeing the snow monkeys in Nagano and spending a day at Disneyland!  Stay tuned for my next post!