Party Over Here/Party Over There

The first two weeks of December have flown by and I know the rest of the month will as well. This past weekend was a good-bye party for one of the South African teachers that left and it was another girl's birthday. I have been meeting more people that are both in my city and in surrounding cities. So it's me and two South Africans at my school, another South African, two Brits and a New Yorker and a guy from Tennessee in the public schools here. Then some people came from Sokcho and Seoul so there tons of people at these parties.



It was sad seeing my South African friend leave. She was a lot of fun and always invited me over to hang out. Although we didn't get much time to get to know each other, I am going to miss her. We ARE going to become pen pals and hopefully I can visit her in South Africa or England, wherever she decides to settle down.



I don't have any plans next weekend, but the following weekend is Christmas. I get Christmas day off (which is a Saturday, but since we work on Saturdays, we don't have to), but we have to work Christmas Eve. One South African in town planned to rent a cabin and invite a whole group of people to spend the weekend in Inje in this cabin. I think that will be fun to get away but still be in the same town. We plan on having a huge Christmas lunch and everyone will bring something to share. We are also doing a secret santa gift exchange and our limit is 15.000 won, which is about $15.

Then the Thursday after Christmas weekend I will be flying to Bangkok, Thailand for nine days. I am traveling with one of the South African teachers I work with and we are going to stay in the city for 1-2 days, then travel down the peninsula and go to some well-known beaches and islands. The temperature is about 88 degrees there so it will be a fun nine days. I figure that if I can't get 15+ inches of snow, I might as well go to the beach for the holidays. I am looking forward to that trip so much. I think it will be a good change of pace.

I return to Korea on January 8th, so it will already be one week down when I get back. I also think we have a long weekend the first weekend of February, so I'm hoping to plan another international holiday that weekend, but I will just see how that goes. There is still a lot of cities and places I want to see in Korea, but I want to go to far away places on the long weekends.

I hear there is about 15 inches of snow and the Metrodome collapsed??!! That made the CNN news in Korea. It was nice seeing footage of cars on the highway. that is a true white Christmas. I hope everyone is staying safe and enjoying the blizzard of 2010!