Ho Ho Ho and Happy New Year!
I am have been M.I.A. for far too long so I think it's finally time to update you on how my holiday in Korea went.
First, to start of the week of Christmas I went to see The Nutcracker. I always wanted to see it back home so I thought I would take advantage of seeing it here. It was a beautiful show but of course I got a little sleepy and dozed off on some parts. The music was just too relaxing lol. Since I was in Seoul, I decided to see what else was going on and found the Design Festival at COEX exhibition hall. It was interesting to finally be around the Korean artsy fartsy crowd for a change.
I also decided to throw my after school class a Christmas Party on Christmas Eve. The only unfortunate thing was that the day before the party, my co-teacher informed me that the winter camp they kept reassuring me was cancelled due to school construction was now going to take place and I would have to give her the plan for it the next day. Arrrggh! My mind was already checked out in Christmas mode, especially since I am not used to working on Christmas Eve...so all I brought in the next day was the theme. Right before my Christmas party, I had to come up with the schedule of the camp on the fly. The good thing was that it would only be for one week (as later I was told it was shorter because of construction and is normally 2-4 weeks). Luckily, this did not hinder me from having a good Christmas party. I put up some decorations, brought in drinks, cake, ice cream and cookies, brought presents, put on Christmas music and had fun Christmas games planned. The kids even helped make and put up decorations. The only thing that was a little disheartening was when the kids opened their gifts and some gave me the impression that they didn't like them. I took a lot of time picking out all different gifts based on their Christmas lists that they wrote to Santa and improvised for the ones that did not give me a list. Only one student said thank you...I probably should have let them open them at home so I wouldn't see their reactions.
On Christmas Day, I was fortunate to spend it with a really sweet American family...and eat American Food!! They were so nice to give me take home plates, bags of candy and let me borrow a blow dryer with a comb attachment (I needed so bad)! They had such a nice, big, warm in cozy house out in the boonies of Korea. It was torture getting to them but it was worth it. Then, I met up with Anakaren and her friends and we all had drinks and snacks while we talked. Her studio is much nicer than mine and she had put up Christmas decorations her mom sent so it was really nice.
Thank you for my gift too mom!
New Year's Eve, I had one thing in mind...to see my favorite Korean group: Dynamic Duo! But like always I did not know anyone who wanted to go. The tickets were about $50 but I didn't care because it was a big New Year's Eve celebration, like NY Times Square but inside a mall in Seoul called Times Square. Anyway, I waited too long to buy tickets and had to find something else to do. At first I thought I would just stay in my neighborhood, go watch the fireworks and then come home and go to bed. After a lot of coaxing, I met up with Anakaren in Bupyeong to hang out at Shelter, the bar that a lot of foreigners and English teachers frequent. Standing in front was another teacher from our orientation, John, and we just hung out until the countdown. For some reason I forgot that I am in Korea where New Year's Eve is not a big deal and they don't really countdown so of course we missed the countdown by 1 minute and did a late countdown lol. It actually turned out to be a fun night as a 60 year old man told Anakaren that he loved her and kept trying to kiss her on the cheek. After the bar we went to eat and there was guy that kept trying to talk to us through his translator app on his phone. It was the most hilarious sentences ever that made no since whatsoever. But you gotta love him for trying! The next day I went to Seoul to see a musical play called Bibap. It was a comedy show about two chefs competing to be the best. There was beatboxing and breakdancing. There was also audience participation and for the last act they chose me! So I had to come on stage and be the judge of the last dish the two chefs made, bibimbap. It was a lot of fun and I got an autographed book from the actors and took a picture with them.
Overall, I had a wonderful and special holiday!
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