DaKids of Philadelphia Gyodang . .

These are the kids of the Won Buddhist Temple of Philadelphia. I have known all of them for close to ten years, many I have seen grow up from the little kid I watched over to the young adults they are today. We have developed a closely knit "family" of sorts. Actually, I would consider most of them as younger brothers and sisters.

On this page, there are pictures of the group from late 1997 to early 2000. You can somewhat see their growth in the pictures (actually, we all pretty much look the same from year to year. :-) But here we are in all our Wonbulgyo glory in front of our gyodang. It's been hard to assemble everyone again now that we've grown up quite a bit. Since my departure for college, we get together only a few times a year. But those are some of the best times I have during any given year.

We have taken some great trips together. Most notably, I think, are our very fun winter retreats to a gyodang in the Pocono Mountains. Since December of 1994, we have taken a three day trip to ski and play silly Korean games and just have lots of fun. Sometimes we met up with our youth counterparts from the Washington and New York gyodangs. Whether we have company or go alone, we have always had fun though.

Recently though, we have fallen our separate ways a bit. Due to the many changes in our gyodang, the bonds keeping us united have weakened. Unfortunately, the result was the first missed winter retreat in eight years. Now, we are trying to organize a young adult group. We would like to meet up a few times a year to continue our ties with each other and Wonbulgyo.