I know that it’s a little late to be posting this, but I still wanted to share it with you. I spent my first Christmas away from long-time-friends and family this year (and Chanukah, too, but that was covered here) and was a little unsure how festive this season would be. Part of my apprehension about the season had to do with how few vacation days we had to celebrate. Now, I’m used to having at least two weeks for Christmas and New Year’s since that is how life worked in the American public school system: You generally had a week of play time between Christmas and New Year’s, sometimes 2 if they fell on Wednesdays. Then, in college, I had final exams in the first two weeks and was home until the first week of January (Hooray for J-Term classes!). Here, we had Christmas Day off (A Tuesday) and New Year’s Day off (Again, Tuesday). Couldn’t even take off the Monday… So, could we go anywhere? No. Make plans? Not really. What ever could we do?
First I decided to set up my Christmas decorations in my apartment:
This is how I prepare for Santa in Korea.
As my parents were kind enough to send over a package of gifts and festive items to make the spirits bright (no spirits in the package though, suitable spirits were acquired here), I displayed them under a fake tree and a coat hanger-turned-general-purpose-Christmas-pole. Preparations complete, I still had to find a way to celebrate.
“Hmmm…. I can help with that!”
Chris’s girlfriend, Angels, was kind enough to invite us to her apartment for a little party on Christmas Eve. So we went over and had some fun, drank some wine, watched some Aeon Flux (apparently it was an animated TV series on MTV?) ate tons of delicious food prepared by Angela and Chris, and enjoyed ourselves. I was made happiest by the lovely cookie I found:
The perfect Yin-Yang Cookie. It means that balance and harmony will dictate the life of whosoever consumes it.
So that’s a good Christmas Eve, but what about Christmas Day? Well, we were debating the available options – go to a bar and bring food, go to a Chili’s or Outback Steakhouse or some such restaurant, or go to a place and cook food – when our bosses surprised us by allowing the use of their apartment! We were incredibly thankful for the opportunity to cook a delicious Christmas meal, do some Secret Santa stuff, relax with friends, and enjoy a fully furnished apartment. Everyone brought a little something to cook up or drink down, a Secret Santa gift, and a joviality the likes of which had never been seen before in Korea. Me? Oh, the newest co-worker Lindsey was my Secret Santa so I got her some chocolates, wine, and a bottle of Soju. What food did I make? Traditional Jewish food of latkes. So I’ll just let the pictures do the talking for how well it turned out:
The view from our bosses’ apartment.
“….Lo, on the day of His birth, they feasted upon the latkes…”
Our delectable spread!
That’s a plateful.
The gang feasting.
Secret Santa!
Christmas success! Ah, I forgot to mention that we got another little gift from the universe. At 9:00 PM on Christmas Day, our newest teacher arrived from the United States. His name is Nolan and he is replacing Ryan down in LangCon. Here he is with us out at dinner a few nights later:
Nolan (L), Phil (C), Andrew (R) prepping some delicious Korean BBQ.
Here’s hoping for the best in his stay!
Finally, the last, best part of December. I got a facebook message from someone I hadn’t seen in three years: Paul Cross. His sister is apparently a teacher up in Seoul and he got some time off from work to come visit. So:
Paul (L) and HyeMee(R) out for a mid-afternoon jaunt through Seoul.
After this photo, I actually had to split for the airport because I was slightly more excited about a different event. Lindsay Van Brocklin had graciously agreed to take one month away from her job search and her family to come visit me for a month. She landed on Dec. 29th and brought with her a new energy and life to my depressing little apartment in the middle of snowy Korea. You’ll hear more about her once we get to January’s make-up posts, just suffice it to say that she arrived and made me the happiest I’d been the whole time I’ve been here. Ok, too much about the personal life! Next!
Recap: Christmas was all about – bosses’ apartment, great food prepared ourselves, successful Secret Santa, & new teacher.
Got to catch up with Paul, Lindz arrived.
What did January have in store? Read about it next!
Incredible Adventure Jon 