It’s Christmas here in Korea… Since I’m a teacher that means a two week break. Hmmm… no….it means i go back to work tommorow. That’s not a complaint but rather a fact of life, this is the time of year when intensives are about to start. Intensives are when the kids all get a month off from school and parents make them full time it at the hagwon. YBM POWER ENGLISH!! That’s the name of the program. Man what a crock of shite.

The lead up to Christmas was hectic. It’s not hard to take for granted how easy it is to shop for things back home. You know where to go to get things and you have the internet to get stuff as well. Out here it’s a different matter. In Daejeon most people don’t speak English so you can be pretty isolated when trying to communicate things or look for stuff in a store.

But having said all that…. me and K still pulled off a great Christmas! We had a Teacher’s party on Friday night which was our first time hanging with the korean teachers, it was a good time. It was nice to be the Koreans in a social setting outside the school. We didn’t do much on Christmas eve, just went out and shopped for more stuff to get each other.

On Christmas morning we opened our gifts in front of K’s family via webcam. Then showed it off to my family with the same technology. I got an ipod (complete with laptop fever, since my old one broke down in October, I now must try to get a new one, maybe i can work something out with my jan paycheck). I got K a small speaker docking station for her ipod. We also got a lot of small stuff for each other too.

We finished up by having some friends over for a Christmas meal. Tikka Masala, Mandu (dumplings, similar to perogies), and Chocolate Cake for desert. Not exactly Turkey dinner, but a still a good meal. It’s been a good holiday, too short but we’ll get another long weekend for new years. The glass is always at least half full, right now it runs over.