A ROKing Christmas

Hey Everyone!! I apologize in advance because our light was leaking and dripped on my keyboard so my Enter key and question mark don't work so this may be a jumble of unorganized text. First off, MERRY CHRISTMAS all!! Thanks to everyone who sent us gifts and cards and who Skyped us on Christmas morning... you made our Christmas really special. We had a great Christmas. I had been dreading Christmas for months, worried it would make me so homesick to be away from home but all our friends here were in the same boat and we made it really fun, actually. At my school this week, we had a Christmas party with all the kids and Santa came. It was so cute and they were very excited. Christmas here isn't as big a deal as back home. For adults, it's mainly a couples holiday, not a family day so couples may go on dates but everyone else just sort of carries on as usual. Kids get gifts but Santa isn't as big a deal and they aren't nearly as excited as they are back in Canada. We did a secret Santa with my staff and, as I mentioned previously, I got our school's director. I ended up getting him a bottle of whiskey, after much worrying and debating, but he ended up making a reservation for the staff at the most expensive restaurant in Uijeongbu, not paying for anything, and then not even showing up to the dinner, leaving his gift (anti-aging cream) to one of the Korean teachers to pass along. So, he wasn't there for the gift exchange and never mentioned getting a gift or thanking me so... I guess it was fine in the end... On Christmas eve, all our friends got together at our friends', Mallory and Karen's apartment for a Christmas eve party. We all brought different dishes from back home and there was a great meal of roasted chicken, corn, broccoli, carrots, peas, gravy, egg nog, mulled wine, tons of desserts, mashed potatoes, and much more. Everyone was dressed in festive clothes and they had their apartment decorated like crazy and carols blasting. Some of our pals at the party.
Jesse in his most festive gear.

Then, on Christmas morning, we woke up early, excited for opening gifts. Jesse got me tons of DVDs, a Roots hoodie, and a necklace and I also got to open gifts from Alison and my mom, which was great. I got Jesse tons of clothes, some DVDs, a nice watch, and some chocolate. We spent the morning Skyping friends and family, eating shortbread and chocolate and watching a Muppets Christmas Carol. Before we started opening gifts.
All our new presents!
Our cards from home.

Oh! I copied and pasted an 'Enter' so now I can organize this better.... Anyway, these are photos from our Christmas morning.

At about 1:00 we got ready to head into Itaewon for our Christmas dinner. We had made a reservation for 29 at the Wolfhound, an Irish pub that does a huge turkey dinner. Turkey is basically impossible to find in Korea and almost no Koreans have ever tried it. Anyway, we met our friends there around 3 and ate tons of Christmas-y foods and talked and hung out. Around 6:30, we were stuffed and tired so we headed back home and watched Friends (one of my Christmas gifts).

Me in my new hoodie, Jesse in a new shirt having Christmas dinner.

Our friends all chowing down.

It was a great Christmas, all in all, but we missed everyone back home a lot.

Sick travel plans and just plain sick

Hi All,

This weekend, Jesse and I headed into Seoul to Xanadu travel agency and just decided to bite the bullet and book something for our winter vacation. We decided to book a 4-day, 3-night trip to Beijing. It sounds pretty great, actually. We'll fly out New Year's Day so we get to spend New Year's in Seoul with our friends. We'll have our own private English-speaking tour guide and will get to see all the big sights - the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, and tons of other cool stuff. We'll be in Beijing for the whole time. Jesse and I are both really excited for that.
The rest of Saturday we just spent doing our Korean homework and watching movies to try to save some money after blowing so much at the travel agent. That night we went to see the new Narnia movie, which was only so-so.

That night I got a really bad flu and Jesse has been battling a cold for awhile so we both just spent Sunday lying around and feeling sick. So that brings us to our new week.

This week at my school we're not doing anything particularly exciting. Our staff has our Christmas party on Friday night. We did a secret Santa and I, unfortunately, picked my school's owner and director who speaks no English and is one of the top 6 richest men in Korea so the 10 dollar limit will result in a present he's totally thrilled about, I'm sure.

Jesse's busy planning for his winter camp, which is coming up soon. Not much else is new here. We're both getting excited for Christmas and China but that's about it.

Hope all is well back home!
Ali and Jesse

Hospitals and Christmas Countdowns

Hi everyone,

Another week passed and now we're only about 12 weeks from coming home!

There haven't been any significant developments between North and South Korea - it seems to have blown over for now.

School is the same as ever - nothing new to report. The weather here is pretty mild compared to how early December usually is back home so we're enjoying it while it's lasting. We had one light dusting of snow which didn't last long but that's all so far.

This weekend, Jesse and I made a massive subway trek to Gangnam, a city South of Seoul. We went there because one of Jesse's favorite students, Hanseul, was in the hospital and we wanted to visit her. She's 7 years old and needs a walker to get around so, from what we understood, she was getting surgery on her legs to either help her walk better or to prevent further problems. Anyway, the poor little girl is out of school for three months and both her legs were in pink casts when we got there. We brought her some English books because she loves books and speaking English and wants to be an English author one day. It was actually really nice to visit her. She's cute as a button and super smart and we just chatted with her for about 40 minutes about all sorts of stuff. I think she was really happy to have visitors and she loves Jesse, clearly.

After that, we headed into Seoul where our friend, Jen, from South Africa, was having a goodbye party. She's been here for a year and a half and is heading home on Tuesday. It was at an Irish pub called the Wolfhound and it was good to eat delicious food and hang out with everyone for the evening. Jen is awesome and it will be sad to see her go but her replacement was there and she seems really cool.

On Sunday, Jesse did his homework for his AQ course and I did some Christmas shopping - nothing exciting.

We're still doing our Korean lessons but I'm losing patience with myself for not learning it faster. We showed our text books to Hanseul and she said "too easy!" and laughed her guts out.

Anyway, that's about all that happening for us right now. Christmas is right around the corner and everyone is getting into the Christmas spirit. I have my students learning a million Christmas carols and making all sorts of decorations for our classrooms.

I hope all of you are also feeling merry these days,

Talk soon,

Ali and Jesse