Christmas in Korea

One year ago on Christmas day I stood on the streets of Costa Rica with my mom, dad and Savanna and watched a parade of several hundred horses take to the street in what was possibly the most bizarre Christmas parade I have ever seen. This year as Rachel and I approached the Christmas holiday we were quite uncertain about what we would be experiencing. We began our Christmas Holiday on Friday the 23^rd at lunch time. After trying to give myself a haircut (I might include pictures)

 Rachel and I rushed out the door and headed to the bus stop. Like pros we navigated the bus system from school to Munbaek to Cheongju to Gagyeong-dong and finally found ourselves on a bus to Seoul. If this sounds like a lot of travel time…it is. From the time we walked out the door at school until we got off the bus in Seoul took us 4 ½ hours.

Having never been to Seoul before, Rachel and I were slightly overwhelmed at the thought of finding our way around such a massive city. Luckily we had two wonderful tour guides. In January of 2008 I went to Buenos Aires, Argentina to get a TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) certificate. During my time in Argentina I studied with, traveled alongside and got to know a great guy. Shortly after getting certified, Jesse Lucas moved to Seoul to start teaching. After nearly 3 years he is still here teaching. It was great to catch up with him. Jesse has been intensively studying Korean and in doing so has met a wonderful lady, Dawun Hong, whom he is now dating. Without the slightest hesitation or frustration they whisked us around Seoul all weekend. (I will attach pictures below to show the things we did and saw.)

It’s Rachel now.  We DID have a great weekend.  It was colder than I have ever experienced, and that holds a lot of weight coming from a native Minnesotan.  I wore leggings under my pants and still had cold legs all weekend.  Even more incredible was the fact that I wore five, yes FIVE layers on my top, three of which were fleece and I was by no means warm. 

From here, I’ll pick up where Luke left off.  Jesse and Dawun picked us up from the bus station and we had Korean barbeque.  On a side note, we are headed to our third “staff dinner” again tonight and yet again having Korean barbeque.  Each time we go, they tell us we’re having a true Korean meal.  They act as if we didn’t just go the week before.  One of the teachers has told me every day for the past week about the death of Kim Jong Il so maybe Koreans are just forgetful! Anyways, we had Korean barbeque in Seoul and then took the subway to Ilsan where Jesse’s apartment is.

On Saturday morning, Christmas Eve, we woke up and had some honey nut cheerios, a fun ‘homey’ breakfast and then bundled up.  We hit the ground running and visited Gyeongbokgung palace first. Here’s a little info thanks to Wikipedia J

First constructed in 1394 and reconstructed in 1867, it was the main and largest palace of the Five Grand Palaces built by the Joseon Dynasty. The name of the palace, Gyeongbokgung, translates in English as "Palace of Shining Happiness."

We took pictures with the non-smiling guards at the entrance and toured around there as long as we could before completely freezing and then at lunch at Korea’s version of Chipotle: Tomatillo. After a tasty meal of chicken burritos, we layered back up and toured around Insadong, a traditional Korean street.  Lots of trinkets and Korean wares for sale; I think we bought a few little things.  It was strange that it was Christmas Eve; it didn’t even feel like it. Christmas is more like a couples’ holiday so the Koreans don’t go all out like we do in the States.  We headed back to Jesse’s apartment early and had a bowl of ‘sam gay tang’ or ginseng chicken soup.  It included an entire chicken stuffed with rice and ginseng, all in a bowl of boiling liquid.  Somewhere in there was also an elk antler??  We chose to pass on that delicacy.  We played games until it was officially Christmas and headed to bed completely exhausted.

Christmas morning: Jesse made us a feast: breakfast burritos complete with eggs, cheese and beans!!! What a treat! And then it was back to Seoul we went.  Walking around another market for a while, we found ourselves in the busiest street in all of downtown.  It’s apparently a great shopping place, but I’m not sure how much shopping was accomplished with the sheer number of people we were sharing the alley-wide street with.  No joke, it was the warmest we were all weekend.  Like cattle, we were herded along the street with hundreds of Koreans.  Luckily claustrophobia did not set in, but I imagine I would have been in some serious trouble if it had!

After another street market, we walked up ¾ of a mile to get to the base of Seoul Tower.  It’s a type of observatory where one can see all of Seoul from a very high place.  It actually looks very similar to the Space Needle in Seattle.  We trudged back down after some pictures and met up with Dawun for dinner in Itaewon.  Itaewon is like a foreigner’s haven in Korea.  It’s near the army base in Seoul, so there are tons of restaurants.  We ate fish and chips at an English pub, but there were American, African, Italian and many other types of places to eat.  We even found a Nashville bar!!  I’m looking forward to possible eating some Italian on New Year’s Eve??

On Monday, we took a quick trip into Costco in Ilsan and bought 4 pounds of cheese.  We grabbed one at first, but Luke knows me wells, so we went back for a second block J It was very similar to Costco back home, but more expensive.  Also, I’m not sure if stateside Costcos have quite the same extensive selection of octopi in their meat department.  It was tasting day so we sampled some velveeta cheese and fruit by the foot.  Eighty dollars later, we boarded the subway and then a bus that took us back to Jincheon.  We’ll be headed to Seoul again for the New Year’s weekend so we’ll have more stories to share soon!

Know that we missed you all terribly this Christmas!! We love you; have a great end of the year celebration…think of us at 9:00am on the 31^st as we’ll already be ringing in the New Year in Korea!!!