Christmas in Korea

It has taken a lot to get me into the spirit of Christmas this year. It just doesn't seem like Christmas to me without snow. This time of year seems to naturally lead to reflection and I amazed to realize that this will be my third Christmas in Korea. Wow! It seems like so long ago I first arrived here in South Korea and yet time has gone fast.

To get into the spirit of the season I have consciously made an effort to try to feel more seasonal. My journey went something like this:

I noticed a lady selling roasted sweet potatoes in the market area behind my apartment building and I could actually smell them [amazing with my bronchitis] and they smelled so good. I stopped and got some for my dinner. They were delicious! Since then every Friday night I stop and chat to the vendor and buy some more sweet potatoes for my dinner. The wood fire is so pretty sometimes I just stand and watch it for a few moments and think... it does seem a little more like Christmas.

Last week when I made my weekly visit to Dunkin' Donuts [its my mid week treat] I saw a poster and was able to read that they were offering a new "Holiday Coffee". It looked good so I ordered one and sat drinking it and looking at the decorations and started to get into the Christmas spirit.

Across from my apartment building is a Korean Beef Restaurant [a Galbi Restaurant as I would call it] and they have some nice lights out for Christmas. But, I have to admit is still looks strange to me to see outdoor tables and Christmas lights at the same time. It's too cold to even consider eating outside in my hometown in Canada anytime around Christmas.

Mega Mart the large supermarket [small department store] near my house has some lovely Christmas lights. I went for a walk last night to look at the Christmas lights around here and took this picture.

Another shot of the Christmas lights outside Mega Mart.

We put up a few decorations in the teachers' room at school. And, that made it feel a little cozier and a little more seasonal.

This Santa Claus is on display at one of my schools. I love that his banner is on him in Korean. I wish I could read it. Just when I think my Korean is improving I can't read a simple Christmas banner. Ba hum bug!

Even the subway stations are decorated for Christmas. This is the Nampo-dong Subway Station Christmas tree.

Last night in the Nampo-dong Subway station there was a band wearing Santa hats and preforming. They were pretty good and a number of people stopped to listen and enjoy the music.

This is "Julie Teacher". She is the Elementary School Korean-English teacher at one of my schools. She gave me a lovely red scarf for Christmas.

Yesterday, at my Yong-do school we had a Christmas party and of course there was pizza. Here's "Harry" enjoying some pizza and posing for a picture for me.

I snapped this picture of my students digging into the pizza. I guess pizza really is an international favorite food. Notice that it's still so hot that the cheese is stringy. YUMMY!

My Grade 6 student "Rocky" surprised me with a Christmas present of a set of 4 Cappuccino Mugs. They are so pretty and huge. Lately, I been making a mug of hot chocolate at night and curling up on my bed with it. There I've been watching Christmas shows which I download using bit torrents and watch on TV via my Xbox and the FTP program [that sends them to the Xbox without me evening having to burn them to a DVD]. Who knew I'd even become so technologically sauvy? Not me.

This week I had a class on how to make a Christmas card in English for my students. I expected them to take the cards for their families. However, some of my students surprised me and gave me the card they had made at the end of the class. They wrote really nice messages like "I love you" and "Annabelle Teacher, Pretty". I am so flattered.

More Christmas cards and postcards.

Another Christmas card from a student.

This Grade 5 student wrote in English and smaller on the left in Korean. I am embarrassed to say I had to get a Korean-English teacher to help me read the Korean message. I speak Korean much better than I can read or write it and I think in that way I have fooled the children into thinking I'm much better at Korean than I actually am.

Still more Christmas cards.

More Christmas cards and postcards. I feel so loved.

Last but not least I finally broke down and bought myself a new digital camera. I've been wanting one for a long time. I love my old digital camera but it's only 2.0 mega pixels and it doesn't do on well close ups. I have been wanting to take clear, crisp pictures of some of the Konglish I see daily but haven't been able to with my old camera. This is a Sony Cybershot camera with 7.2 mega pixels and a macro feature that lets me do close ups of printed material.

I am considering this to be my Christmas present to myself for surviving my ill health and getting into the Christmas spirit in spite of being far away from the people I love most int he whole world. Merry Christmas to me.

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Well, I'm off to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" on my Xbox and TV and drink some hot chocolate.

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Merry Christmas everyone.

North-East Asia: My Arrival

Thursday, January, 23rd, 2003 - Evening

Some 22 hours of flight time after beginning in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada I arrived at the Tokoyo, Narita Airport. I took this picture of Terminal 2 there. I probably wouldn't be allowed to take this photo today since airport restrictions have tightened since January 2003.

Well, I had a no problem getting through the metal detector at the Japanese Airport since I was now wearing a turtleneck sweater and slip-on pants with no belt and (no more metal buttons - I live - I learn). I cashed $ 40.00 Canadian Dollars in the airport at a Currency Exchange. I was to stay overnight stay at the Niko-Narita a hotel where all the Flight Attendants and crew from my plane were staying and I knew that I would be provided with a coupon for breakfast the next morning in the hotel but I would have to buy something to eat that night.

I was not prepared for how expensive everything was. Even the food in Japan was outrageously expensive. I remember thinking to myself, "No wonder all the Japanese people are so thin. They can't afford to eat." The average meal at my hotel [which by the way was nice but not a deluxe hotel - it was sort of like a Holiday Inn or a Howard Johnson's - not a Hilton by any means] was 7,000 - 8,000 yen [I figured it out to be something like $ 90.00 - $ 100.00 CDN] and that was for fish and rice. I used to eat Japanese take-out in Halifax all the time and I had gotten the same food for about $ 7.00 there. Lucky for me there was a little convenience store slash gift shop in the hotel and I bought some chocolate chip cookies for around $ 5.00 and since there was a kettle in my room and the hotel had provided a complimentary green tea bag at least I had some tea and cookies. The cookies were each wrapped individually. So much for the concern for pollution and the Kyoto Accord.

One good thing about staying at a hotel the airlines use is that they have some arrangement re: luggage. So,although I had to get my luggage in the Tokoyo-Narita airport and put in on the bus to the hotel using a luggage cart after that I didn't have to see it again until Korea. The hotel let me check the luggage through to the Seoul-Incheon airport.

Breakfast the next morning was amazing! It was a buffet and I met some Australian guy and we sat and ate together. Actually, I had met him the night before in the hotel store he was buying "Cup of Noodles" for his dinner. He was headed to some small town in Japan to teach English there. I guess we were both on a tight budget and starving so that morning we ate like pigs! We kept eating saying, "Might as well eat what we can. Who knows when we'll see bacon and cappuccino again..."

This is the ticket stub for the "Airport Limousine" a bus that travels between the two airports (the International and the Domestic - in Seoul, South Korea). The cost was 4,500 won or approximately $ 5.00 CDN

At the Seoul-Incheon [Korea] airport I had to get a luggage cart and my bags and go to a Kiosk and buy Korean money ( I only bought about $ 100.00 CDN worth of Korean money and it was on a Friday. It turned out not to be near enough money to have considering the banks were closed until Monday). Then I had to buy a ticket for a bus from the Incheon Airport to the Gimpo Airport. This confuses a lot of people. What you need to know is that Incheon is an International Airport and Gimpo is the Domestic Airport. For some reason Korea has divided the Internation and Domestic traffic between two airports. Koreans seem to understand and accept this situation but it is very confusing to foreigners.

Lucky for me my recruiter was a Canadian guy who had lived and taught in Korea so he knew what to tell me about travelling between the airports and to get a ticket for the shuttle bus between them. I have talked to people who didn't know they could do this and who had taken taxis and been charged at least $ 50.00 American Dollars for the trip. For whatever reason, it seems to be American Soldiers who have had this experience of wasting money for a taxi when for a tenth of the cost they could have gotten a bus.

The bus was very nice. It had single seats on each side of it and they reclined like arm chairs. The driver even took my luggage off of the luggage cart and put it in the bottom of the bus for me. The bus ride took between 30 - 45 minutes.

Kimpo (the Korean Domestic Airport) was okay but very small! And, I had to wait 4 hours for my flight to Daegu to be called. It was bright, loud, and uncomfortable. A very loud basketball game was on TV. But I amused myself by finding a free computer and checking my e-mail. I still wish the chairs hadn't been divided so I could have laid down and slept - even for a little while.

The flight from Kimpo to Daegu was without a doubt the worst part of my whole trip! The airplane was jammed and tiny! But luckily the flight only lasted 40-50 minutes. It was a Korean Airlines flight and it was definately not bilingual! No one spoke English. But I didn't even mind. I was just so glad that I was nearing my final destination!

My Korean Adventures continues....