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Published: January 2nd 2007
Well, it wasn’t “white”, and it wasn’t “just like the ones I used to know” but it was “merry and bright”. We had a fabulous dumping of flaky goodness about a week before the big day, and with the cold temperatures, it stuck around for almost long enough, but not quite.
We threw ourselves in the deep end and decided to host Christmas dinner this year. On Christmas Eve we had 13 people around for festivities and scrumptious delights, enough to feed about 30. We’d decided to keep it small, partly as our apartment ain’t that grand, and mostly because we just wanted to spend a relaxing time with good company. It turned out to be quite the production anyway, and not so relaxing for us hosts as we might have hoped. It was a very different celebration to last year’s quiet little party in a blissfully isolated ger in the Mongolian wilderness, cooking on the wood stove and playing cards (see
Foxy Festivities). This year, we had ovens stacked on top of each other in the kitchen, plus another oven and a rice cooker steaming away in the bedroom. Our shoe closet doubled as an overflow fridge for big
Our place
Neptune 102 - Opposite the pubitems like the three cream cakes which constituted only a small part of the desserts course.
It was a lovely night complete with sparkly optic fibre Christmas tree, a toasty log fireplace flickering away on loop on the telly (the best DVD ever!) and some rather toxic fake snow…just add water! (Thanks, Larry & Melanie!) The snow was very realistic, and looked nice scattered all around the apartment, but we were all a bit wary of the “If swallowed, induce vomiting” label. Outside our front door we have a real Christmas tree, which is yet to show any ill effects of the noxious sprinkling it received.
The thing about Christmas in Korea is that compared to home, it’s nigh on impossible to get reasonably priced fresh fruit…So we ate CREAM. In all forms (whipped on pavlova, lathered on cakes, saucy with pasta, sour in stroganoff and alcoholic in home-made Baileys), for several days, with much delight at the time, but with some unpleasant consequences… especially for those lactose-intolerants among us.
Christmas Day was a relaxing affair. We were lucky enough to be amongst the 10 teachers with the day off (The other 150 had
to work, despite there being no students).
We had a sleep in, spoke to both extended families over breakfast), had yummy leftovers for lunch, opened pressies and went out for a posh dinner at the Art Village across the road with Ben & Kim (more creamy pasta…Mmmmmm).
CLICK on these links for more Christmas cheer - you'll be glad you did, trust me...
Mellielf and
Garelf New Year’s Eve was entertaining, though a little less relaxing as it fell in the middle of our 9 day stint of work. There was a party here at the village and the “Happy New Year” vibe was in full swing. We missed the Sydney fireworks terribly, but we had a little excitement when a happy punter let some off inside the cafeteria and the big boss integrated some fire-stamping into his dance routine. 2007 had begun, and a communal hangover prevailed for New Year’s Day work.
So it’s our big year! 2007 looks set to be the most eventful ever, and we can’t wait to get going on it. 2007 should also be our best bet at seeing most of you guys at some stage. We’re
sure to be at a place near you at some stage in the next 12 months. Be there or be square.
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Laurence Melanie
Laurence Buckley & Melanie Buckley
Don't eat the snow
I am glad that noone got sick from the fake snow and now that you got your Travelblog out so fast, I'd better get a move-on to get mine out. Once you leave EV we'll be seeing you in either the U.S.A or Australia.