메리 크리스마스!! :D

A few questions I'm being asked by the folks at home:

1. Do Koreans celebrate Christmas?
Yes. Kinda. Not like we do. Back home, if you aren't religious, it is still a family holiday (however you define family). Here, it's acknowledged, but not quite with the fanfare that westerners give it.

2.....So, what do they do?
Stores were open. There were no big Christmas sales (at least, not in Gangnam). Kids still had to go to academies. The religious families do go to church on Christmas, but the non-religious ones treat it like a normal day. Definitely more attention was given to Chuseok (which is as it should be). I asked my kids about presents to and from their parents - they were kinda eehhh about it. Definitely not as excited as a kid the same age in America would be. Most of them looked at me strangely when I asked them what they got their parents, but a few had answers. If it's not spent with family, Christmas is a pretty big couples holiday, too.

3. Any special foods?
Kimchi. I'm sure =p

There was some homesickness for me. Especially when I was on the bus on the way to Gangnam to meet up with Sio, Cait, Care, and Riah (not that the expected company was giving me reasons to miss home - just that I'd just talked to Mom and it was so weird not to spend today with her). It also didn't help that I've been sick. I have no clue what I have, except that it started with a sore throat and turned into lots of snot. No fever. I took Korean mystery cold medicine again, which took care of it (and made my heart race....love those side effects).

I finished my Slytherin gloves on the bus! The roads were extra crowded, so our driver felt the need to push the scooter-driver impersonation even further (the result: I took the Tilt-a-Whirl to Gangnam); however, that didn't stop me from finishing my gloves - an activity that involves a darning needle - nor the woman beside me from applying eyeliner. She and I were such pros in our respective tasks ;p

As American tradition requires the family-less to order Chinese on Christmas, we decided that the Korean equivalent was Indian (that and....we just love Indian food). Taj was wonderful, as usual. Gangnam was packed, but Taj was thankfully not. They seated us in one of the private rooms and we ordered possibly everything on the menu.

Then we went to Dr. Fish and had the most political cake ever consumed. I wish our consumption of it had been recorded because I'm sure one day I will have to teach a lesson on current foreign relations, and our divided segments with appropriate country names were fantastic symbols. I was North Korea (why am I always North Korea?) and I kept flinging cranberry bombs (and missing horribly) into Riah's South Korean section. We didn't take down the chocolate barrier between us (as we ate into the cake, we just continued to re-fortify it - although Riah did dig a few secret tunnels to keep getting at my icecream). My section also got narrower and narrower. Siobhain/China pretended to be on my side but was really just intersted in what Cait/America was giving her. Someone did give me cranberries, but I just used them to create more bombs to send over to Riah's section.

The entire time, we were being stared at by this Korean guy (who looked like he was trying to be the next K-Pop sensation but with terrible teeth). Normally, this would be attributed to the fact that.....we just fail at being in public, but this guy started staring before we really got into the Us. I responded by waving at him. He waved back. And they continued to stare. His girlfriend spent the entire time putting on makeup. I'm not sure how it is possible, but I think Korean girls wear more makeup than they have skin.

The night ended with me catching the 6800 and then, as usual, getting off at the wrong stop. Yes, I did cry - but then I found a cab and, instead of telling him my address, just told him "energy building" (it's the same in both languages). He figured out that I didn't really want to go to the energy building, but to the apartments behind it, and took me right to my door. I was much closer than I was the last time I got lost - and had I kept walking (instead of hailing that cab), I would have made it home after a few blocks. But, now I know where I should get off the 6800 (just like after last time I know where I should get off the 5500).

It's 3:30 am. I should possibly sleep.

Oops...Did You Just Hear That?

If you're a foreigner in Korea, you're an eavesdropper. Don't be ashamed - we all do it. We're not used to living in a place where most of the conversation is in a foreign language (and, even if you do understand Korean, most of it is so fast or riddled with so much slang, that it's often hard to follow), so when you hear it, your ears naturally perk up, and you listen along.

Another thing about being a foreigner in Korea is that you also get used to not being understood by the people around you - which means you can have some pretty interesting conversations in crowds.

And sometimes there's an indescribable mix of these two phenomenons.

The scene: Siobhain, Cait, Caroline, and I are at On The Border. Being that it is a very western restaurant, the Korean/foreigner mix was pretty even. Fortunately, the four of us were in a corner. We'd been yarn shopping all day (because that's what we do), and were ordering our various courses slowly to give us time to sit there and knit (yes, we did sit at On The Border on a Saturday night and knit; haters gonna hate). The table next to us had a much faster occupation flow. When we originally sat, there was a couple sharing some queso. They were replaced by a group of Korean university students...

Then, the stars of our show walked in. Three caucasian males who weren't bad looking; however, upon closer inspection, we realized that they were orthodox Mormon (name tag and all - not sure "orthodox" is the right word..). One of us - who shall remain nameless - suggested we order a round of drinks for them. That idea was quickly vetoed (nope, definitely not by me) because we were sitting right next to them and it would seem a bit obvious. Being that we were two groups of foreigners, we of course tried to listen in onto their conversation. However, they weren't speaking English. Cait guessed Russian, and we left it at that. And, of course, we continued to eavesdrop for the occasional hint of English because, let's face it, we were curious.

(At this point I should mention two things: one, foreigners in Korea are especially curious about other foreigners who do something other than teach or serve in the military; two, although foreigners love to eavesdrop, we tend to have this mental block that keeps us from realizing that others are probably doing it to us, too.)

Sometime later, the guys all start speaking English. Very unaccented English. At this new tidbit to pique our curiosity, we of course started to listen closer. One of us (okay, me) was caught when, like an idiot, there was eye contact made during some intense information gathering.

Finally, the three men got up to leave. One of them was INSANELY CLOSE to my chair, and I kept looking over at him....well, partially because of the above mentioned curiosity....and partially because he was REALLY CLOSE TO MY YARN STASH AND OMG I'M LIKE A PROTECTIVE MOTHER BEAR. He looks over at us and says,

"How's the sewing going? Sorry if we confused you. We were practicing our Russian."

Our only response? "It's not sewing - it's knitting!" and a whole lot of laughter after they left (but, as things had proved that night, probably not when they were out of earshot).