Christmas here in Korea was enjoyable. it went by about as quickly as it does in the US which is always too fast. on Christmas Eve, i went to a Christmas Party at my church which was a lot of fun. we had Korean food for dinner, watched a video about Christmas which happened to be in English and had no subtitles, so most of the people ended up just talking to each other, then there were many different performances regarding the story of Christmas and also other interesting things, including a traditional Korean dance by a girl decked out in the fancy traditional clothing. some of the people at church somehow talked me into participating, so i became shephard #4. we had to make our own costumes, and i had nothing to use to make a shephard outfit, so i just looked like one of the few foreigners standing there reading his one line to the crowd XD we didn’t practice much, and so we got the audience laughing a lot… all unintentionally. someone dressed up in a santa outfit and gave gifts to all the children–they seemed to enjoy it a lot.

i spent Christmas day opening gifts my family sent me in the morning–my parents even sent me a tiny plastic Christmas tree 🙂 after that, i was invited a gathering with all of the English speaking foreign single adults in Seoul from my church. not sure how many there are total, but there was about 25 people there. we played games and talked and had a turkey dinner. it was nice, since i’ve yet to find turkey here in Seoul (though i haven’t set out to really search for it), and it also reminded me of home with everyone getting together and having fun and eating a lot 🙂

last saturday night was a church Dance Party which was a lot o fun, but defintely too short. the organizers meant well, but too much time was spent in various activities to try to get all of us to socialize and get to know each other better. it’s strange, but i’ve found myself much much less shy here than when i’ve been in the US. but i think most Koreans seem to either be very shy around foreigners, or they’re very outgoing and walk right up to talk to you. many of them know English in varying degrees, so i can still communicate with them. i try to speak to them in Korean, but still have troubles with the speed in which they speak–too fast!

not sure what i’ll be doing on New Year’s Eve/Day here. it’s another holiday that’s not as big here as it is in the US. the Lunar New Year is very big here though, so that should be fun (unless i’m home alone for the 3 day event :p)

i’ll try to get some new pics up soon