The Holidays

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Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was definitely interesting. At school I made hand and foot paper turkeys with the kids. When I showed our bosses they said "Oh peacocks!" which cracked me up. Obviously none of our children or bosses knew what a turkey was. Thanksgiving fell on a weekday and unlike the states, we did not get that day off. To the Koreans it was just a normal day because it is an American holiday and their thanksgiving is called Chusock which is in July.
Our Thanksgiving dinner turned out much better than we expected. We had about ten people come together in a small loft apartment. Many of the people here are actually Canadian and their Thanksgiving is on October 12th. So it was really nice that we were able to celebrate our Thanksgiving close to the right day. I say close because on the real Thanksgiving we were at work all day. Everyone brought something and we had an almost traditional meal. Koreas don’t eat turkey and most don’t even know what a turkey is. So instead of turkey we had rotisserie chicken from Costco and it was delicious. The dinner was a success and we had a pretty fun afternoon. We played Wii bowling and golf, which was awesome might I add. At the end of the night we played a big game of Texas hold em’, which is pretty much what we do if we have money in our pockets and a group of people. Everyone hung around and talked, ate, and drank until we were stuffed and drunk and then eventually made our way home late in the evening.
It’s strange here because everyone is Korean so when you see a foreigner, white/black non-Korean, they are basically your friend. Foreigners kind of stick together because may people over here are lonely and also because if you don’t talk to foreigners you would have no one to talk to unless you spoke Korean. This dynamic sucks sometimes because some of the people are lame but when you have limited friends you really don’t have a choice. Luckily we have found a decent group of people and Thanksgiving was much more fun than we expected. I think Thanksgiving is a little harder time for Americans here because Koreans don’t celebrate it. Christmas on the other hand they do celebrate which makes Korea feel a little like home, especially when you hear American Christmas songs in all the big department stores.

Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Christmas this year was really fun. We did a lot and we are really really really glad to have a 10 day break from teaching English to our little monsters, I mean students. Our kindergarten class performed an adorable play for all the parents. It was really cute, we taped part of it look at the link. The last week before Christmas break seemed to drag on forever. I think we were more excited for the break than they were. They don’t celebrate Christmas as much as American children. Korean children usually only get one or two presents and it is a small gift like a book or DVD. Compared to what we received as children I feel spoiled, but their parents also spend $20,000 a year on their children’s education.
On Christmas Eve we went to an all you can eat Brazilian steak house, which was delicious. Oh did I mention that Josh dressed up as Santa with three of our friends, it was hilarious. Then we went to the bars and norebong all dresses up in our holiday gear! We woke up on Christmas morning and opened our presents finally. I made Josh wait until Christmas and had to stop him a couple of times from peaking, he’s just like a little kid sometimes. : - ) That afternoon we went to a friend’s house and had a full turkey Christmas dinner. Two days of stuffing our faces is enough to last me a couple months.


Thank you everyone for the presents and cards they were awesome. Santa was really good to us this year! We are off to china tomorrow, so our next blog should be interesting. We miss you all! Merry Christmas!!!



Love,
Josh and Jenna

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Comments

[Mom]

Missing You!!
Merry Christmas to you my darling daughter, and Josh!! Looks like you celebrated in style. Josh you look great in your Santa suit :-) What a wonderful opportunity to travel to China over Christmas break, make sure you take lots of pictures! Glad you enjoyed your Christmas cookies, they were made with LOVE, from our house to yours!! Miss you terrible, Love Mom

[Kristen]

Merry Christmas!
Hey chica! Glad to hear that you got to have a good time at Christmas, even if Thanksgiving wasn't amazing... your pictures are so cute! You look really good. I had to work an 11 hour shift on Christmas, so that was a little rought. I celebrated that night with Bryan's family which was a lot of fun, and then we celebrated with my family the next day. I didn't get to see my brother this year, so it didn't feel as much like Christmas. Keep in touch! Love you!

[Jamie]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Dear Jenna and Josh, Great pictures! The kids in the school program (and you guys of course) are adorable. Hopefully the kids there hear about the real meaning of Christmas - the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Have a great time in China! I miss you lots!!! God bless you, Dad.