Holiday Time in Korea

 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Korea everyone! We miss you all and think about you everyday. Our Korean Christmas was the perfect balance of tradition and new cultural experiences. We had a Christmas party at school for our Kindy kids. There was face painting, snowflake making, pin the nose on Rudolph, watch a movie with Santa and a huge amount of cake, cookies, crackers, chips and of course a fruit plate (virtually untouched except for the oranges). All the teachers got the kids some gifts which were received greatly, for the most part anyway.

On Christmas day all the teachers rode the bus with one of our bosses, the infamous Mr. Park, to the owner of the school's house, the less infamous but mysteriously elusive Mr. Jung. There we had a fantastic Korean Christmas dinner of bulgogi, bibimbop, and another delicious dish of noodles and sesame something and a few other little things. Much wine was drunk, we downed a very nice, and expensive, bottle of aged single malt whiskey and merriment was had by all. We exchanged some secret Santa gifts, strangely enough Mr. Park had Taylor and Mr. Jung had me. She got a nice necklace and i got a beautiful neck tie. Not as great as being home with family and enjoying the unbeatable turkey dinner and Christmas baking but, all in all it was as good an alternative as can be had anywhere.

Happy new year again and we miss you all so much. Can't wait for some visitors...

An American-Korean Thanksgiving

Last weekend was Thanksgiving in America, and since Taylor and I work with four Americans we all had a Thanksgiving potluck dinner. This thanksgiving had a twist as there were also a couple of Korean guests. We had to have chicken instead of turkey and there was no cranberry sauce to be had but other than that it was everything we wanted. We brought mashed potatoes and ice cream to go with desert. The Korean guests brought some traditional and very common Korean food, sliced pork with kimchi and lettuce, it was delicious too. We got to see them enjoy gravy for the first time, could you imagine never having had gravy and not even knowing about it?! After the feast we played yahtzee and balderdash, both of which were won by this very couple. We would like to dedicate both wins to Milty and Guto, we miss you both and miss dominating game nights back home too. All in all it was a great night and I am very glad that we didn't totally miss out on thanksgiving this year.

Bukhansan National Park

We visited the Bukhansan National Park a few weeks ago. It is located just outside of Seoul and is home to huge granite mountains, ancient temples and fortresses, beautiful scenery, and as always in Korea, lots of unique cultural experiences. The park holds the world record for being the national park with the most visitors per square foot and averages 5 million visitors. However, it is still easy to find trails that are virtually secluded from the crowds of hikers. Me and Nathan spent a large part of our day alone wandering through the woods following the faint sound of Buddhist chanting, which ultimately lead us to our first true temple experience and yes, it was amazing.