Merry Christmas

No offense to everyone back home, but I think this Christmas has been my best in years. So where do I begin?

On Tuesday night I went out after work with a few co-workers. We went downtown to do a number of things. First, we hit up Kyobo Books, the biggest book store in Daegu. One of my co-workers, Sunju, wanted to exchange Christmas presents with me, and before any of you start asking this to yourselves (because I know you are going to) YES they celebrate Christmas here. There are many Korean Christians, and they are just like every other Christian. Sunju got me a Korean grammar textbook (which I requested) and I got her a John Coltrane CD. She wanted to start listening to jazz so I figured Coltrane was a good starting musician. Will, if you read this and are wondering which album, I got her the best one: Giant Steps.

My other co-worker, Myungji, felt a little left out and wanted to also exchange gifts with me, so she got me a really cool necklace that was made in India, and I got her some earings. We then went to dinner at this really cool Indian restaurant, followed by a couple hours spent at BilliBowl, a bar/restaurant known for the game of "Billibowl". I think I mentioned this in another blog but it's like bowling with billiards and it's really fun. My coworkers had never done it before.

On Christmas Eve I had to work, but after getting off work I went home and showered and packed for my trip to the cabin. I then hitched on over to the train station where I met 5 of my other companions. We met the 7th person at our destination city, Sangju. We then took a 40 minute taxi ride up into the mountains where our cabin awaited us. Upon arriving at the cabin, we set up our miniature fake Christmas tree and set all of the secret santa presents underneath it. We broke out the food and drinks and music and started opening presents. Mine was a comic book that basically highlights all of the nuances of Korean culture from a western perspective. It's funny but enlightening at the same time. After presents we just listened to music and drank soju and beer for a couple hours.

We spent Christmas morning drinking hot chocolate and chilling in the cabin before heading back to Daegu later in the afternoon. Upon getting back to Daegu, we met some other people at a Starbucks where we hung out for maybe an hour. By then it was 7pm and time for a fance Christmas dinner at the Holy Grill, which was only available upon reservations (which we had.) The dinner was amazing, basically a sort of Thanksgiving-style feast. There was a Christmas trivia at the end of dinner which my team ALMOST won; we ended up losing by one point. After trivia we all just sat around and played cards and talked for a couple hours.

I got back to my apartment around midnight and decided to write all this up before going to bed, since I have to work tomorrow (what the hell is that, right?) But I am now exhausted and you know all about my Christmas, so I am going to bed.