Christmas in Korea

Sunday, January 4, 2009

So.... now that I finally have a life again I can sit and write on here. Also, now that Matt is back from Canada I can write about Christmas. You see, Matt surprised his family by going home for Christmas and I didn't want to spoil anything for anyone by writing about our Christmas or putting up any photos. Thus the severe lack of posting for the last two weeks.

Christmas here was as good as it could be I guess. We really were homesick for friends and family. We missed waking up and opening stockings and then sitting around being lazy all day and eating Christmas baking till we puked or gained 10 pounds. I did my best to make up for it, but the lack of baking supplies in Korea is astonishing. Not only that, I was limited with the types of cookies I could make as well because, if you remember, I have no oven. So, "no-bake" cookies it was with "no-ingredients" = no cookies. I did manage to make pseudo rice krispie squares. They were "pseudo" because there are no rice krispies either... so I made them with frosted flakes. Sticking with Korean tradition, how everything is uber sweet here, they were even sweeter than normal because of the frosting on the flakes. So, it took us forever to eat them because we were on a sugar high after one bite!

Christmas morning I made brunch for Kyle and I and a couple friends. I made pancakes with blueberries and strawberries on them. Also, I put together a fruit platter with pineapple, honey dew, and oranges. The coconut was fun. It was my first time having fresh coconut and I couldn't stop eating it. We had no utensils to break it open so we used Kyle's utility knife to drill a hole into with the can opener (?) and then I drained the coconut milk. After that we had the dilemma of how to crack the coconut. We were going to slam it against the counter, but being fairly early in the morning and having a metal counter, we opted against that after the first try. Very loud. We decided since I had just bleached and scrubbed and cleaned the entire bathroom from top to bottom the previous night, we would just go into the bathroom and hold the coconut up high and drop it on the bathroom floor. It worked! It cracked in half perfectly. Along with all of this, I made eggs and bacon and tea. It was really good.

Shortly after we had breakfast we went for a walk which severly depressed me and made me cranky so we cut it short and came home again. We were walking around and seeing everyone with their families and laughing and having a good time. Normally, this is okay, and would be okay at Christmas as well, but being out here everything is under a magnifying glass and it just makes you feel awful.

I decided to start prepping for Christmas dinner. Now, you may think "What is Christmas dinner without a turkey?" We were thinking the same thing. So we went to the store on Christmas eve and bought some ham that we thought would be pretty good. After we bought the ham we thought we should look at pre-cooked chickens. They don't have turkeys here. Well... at least that is what everyone including all the Koreans thought.... then I looked up from the chickens. I saw a massive white box and perched on top of the white box was a sign written completely in Korean with a picture of a large cooked bird on it. I knew the only thing big enough to fill that box was a turkey.... I pointed in silence until Kyle asked me "what" and I exclaimed, rather loudly, "TURKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!" We were very excited, except it was very expensive. Most foreign things here are, but a cooked turkey with cranberry sauce and veggies stuffed in it, was most expensive. We called our friends who were coming for dinner and asked "Do you want to pay $85 for a turkey?" We all said and excited yes, split the cost and ordered one to pick up on Christmas at 5:30pm.

I think we were the only people who ordered one because when we went to pick it up everyone came out to see who would actually pay that for a turkey. Ha. Foreigners at Christmas will!

We sat in the taxi with our white box and mouths watering and rushed home to carve the turkey and eat some of it. It smelled heavenly and, not sure if it was because we are here and weren't expecting to have a turkey or if it was because it actually was, but it was the best tasting turkey we have had in a very long time. I also made mashed potatoes (which I mashed with a spatula and small fork for a very long time since they don't have mashers here either), carrots and corn. We ate so much food. And we had some wine and then when we finished and were stuffed to the gills, we played some Killer Bunnies (for like 3 hours) and drank tea then called it a night. It was amazing because we actually forgot where we were for a while since it smelled like home and we had great english company.... it was the icing on the cake. We all loved it.

So, Christmas was good... pictures will follow. Thank you everyone for the cards. Justine and Danielle, we love the family photos. We show them to everyone and they are on our fridge. Mom and Dad, thanks for the Christmas card, we miss you and love you too. Thanks to Kathryn for surprising me with a card and giving me an old picture that made me smile and laugh. I love it. It's now on our wall. And everyone else who sent us cards. Thanks!!! We love and miss you all.

Have a good day!!!!! Pictures are coming later when I get home from work or tomorrow morning

(PS. The reason I had no life was because when Matt went home for Christmas our summer intensives started, so we added on an extra 1hr class at the beginning of the day, so I had to be at work for like 1:30pm, I was working all of my classes and on certain days, Matt's classes too or at least preparing things for his classes and I was teaching the adult class everynight on top of it, so I had no desire to be on here after working that long. But, Matt is back and I felt motivated today!)