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.

I Got Lost!

There is no metaphor behind that title - I literally got lost. More lost than I have ever been in Korea. Before we go any further, I feel the need to reassure all concerned parties (e.g., my parents) of something insanely important: I live in one of the top five safest places on the PLANET. Little children in Suji-gu walk home alone after their 10pm academies let out.

Back story: My friend Tim threw me a "surprise" birthday party. Surprise in quotation marks because I knew about it (however, it did involve one fantastic surprise - I got to see my favorite Korean friend who had said earlier that he was completely busy...he did have to leave right away, but it was nice seeing him :)). We had a very American dinner followed by norebang (Lady Marmalade!) and it was exactly what I wanted.

Okay. So. Tonight was definitely the night of Bad Decisions. Not the type of bad decisions that involve hospitals and babies and brain poisoning, but definitely not ones that involved thinking. Bad Decision one was not to get on the M-4101 - a bus that goes directly from Myeong-dong (the neighborhood in Seoul where we had dinner/norebang) to Suji. I have a love-hate relationship with that bus because it's such a battle to get on. The M busses don't allow people to stand, so once all the seats are full, that's it. And everyone wants on that bus because it's the fastest way to get back to Suji from north of the river. Instead, I got on the 5500-2. Mostly because it was there. And convenient. It's a G-bus...and while they are less crowded, they also don't have that nice convenient light-up map that shows where you are on the route. Leading us to mistake number two (the Big One).

I got off at the wrong stop. I wasn't quite sure where we were. I heard the bus announcement say "Suji" - I looked around outside, thought I recognized the area, and just jumped off. I was afraid that I'd stay on it too long. Bad Decision number three is directly correlated: I looked around and realized I was a bit further away from Pungdeokcheong-dong (my neighborhood) than I realized, so I looked around again, thought I saw one of the downtown buildings, and started walking straight. I was wrong. Then I saw the M-4101 take a turn, so I followed it thinking that it would lead me to stuff I recognized. Wrong again. Had no clue how to get back to the bus stop. Had no clue where I was in relation to anything.

So I hailed a cab. Told him that I wanted to go to Pungdeokcheong. He had no clue where that was. So I told him to take me to the Suji Lotte Mart. He insisted there was no Lotte Mart in Suji (if any coworkers are reading this, here is a good place to laugh - to those who don't live here, I go to the Suji Lotte Mart like once a week). So I did the only thing I could think to do. I called Tim so he could help translate (Tim, if you're reading this, I love you and thank you forever for talking to that cab driver; I'm going to speak for my mother and tell you that she loves you too as you were involved in me getting un-lost, even though the idiot cab driver was...well...still an idiot). I overhear him telling Tim that there is no Lotte in Suji, but there is a Shinsegae in Jukjeon. Ok, fine, it's a million years away from my apt, but I know where it is in reference to where I live and, obviously, how to get home. So I tell the man that the Shinsegae in Jukjeon is fine. He looks at me as if I have 8 heads and starts driving. I look around to see if there's anything I recognize so I don't have to make that long-ass walk home. Nothing. Oh well. We get to an intersection that I kinda recognize, and he points out Lotte Mart and asks if that's where I want to go. YES!!! Well, he turns toward Shinsegae anyway. At one point, I swear he said something insanely derogative about having a foreigner in his cab..

Drops me off at Shinsegae. I walk home, laughing the whole 15 minutes. The whole time, I was just a few blocks away from where I wanted to be.