Friday, November 26, 2010

Weekend 38 of 52.



Hongdae Free Market, American Thanksgiving

I know I am late blogging the weekend (during which we laid low entirely in Hongdae, watching a friend perform at the Hongdae Free Market and meeting other new friends for coffee), but now I have bonus pictures from our American Thanksgiving dinner. Dan organized the celebration with the other English teachers at his school. We were able to purchase a turkey and ham dinner from the Dragon Hill Lodge. The meat was awesome and completely undoable otherwise, but the sides were lackluster and we didn't even get the advertised beans almondine (mixed vegetables instead) and gravy (raisin rum sauce instead). Luckily, our meal was supplemented with roll cake, lemon cake, nut cake, sweet potatoes, deviled soy sauce eggs, tomatoes, oranges, Tropicana Sparkling, Shany rolls, chocolate peanut butter pie, and the pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes also from the Dragon Hill Lodge.

The food was abundant, and it was so good to spend time with the teachers. We laughed a lot, and Dan said the day was one of his favorites in Korea so far (Thanksgiving coincided with Happy Day at the school, a day for students to shirk class responsibility and watch movies and play games and eat and sell snacks). And now AFN Korea is airing the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which I had given up seeing (but what's a Thanksgiving without various recording artists enthusiastically lip-synching to pre-recorded tracks?)! Thanks, Army!



Back to the weekend. We are starting to see Christmas trees are wreaths and things.


While the leaves keep falling right off.


Sticks for trees.



Snowflake assembly.


Some stubborn leaves.


Our friend Chekone (like check one, check two...).


No lie, I wore the girl version of this exact outfit on this exact day.


This kid was being awesome, wearing a bear on her head, clapping and running, and being glad about the music.


A music poster. I didn't know Bob Evans had a band.


A building in Hongdae.


Mix and match.


We ran into some Santa boys offering prizes if you could beat them at Paper, Rock, Scissors. Seems easy enough, but Koreans are experts at this game, settling every score with a quick round. We got the conciliatory coupon.


A Chocolate Cake cafe seems like the best idea.


We accidentally went to three coffee shops on Saturday, which bumped our week-long total to 8. Uh, what?


Fantastic use of chicken wire. I want this.


Our view from dinner on the second floor.


Yonsei University students in a Globalization class interviewed us as foreign musicians about the global impact of music. It was a really interesting conversation and maybe Dan will teach them to play guitar now.


Sometimes robots hang out in our closet.


Our Dragon Hill Deli box of delights that Korrine trucked over to pick up.


Food, food, food!


While Marius carved the ham, Rachel carved the turkey. Luke looking on.


Jessica waiting for it.


We did a musical chairs style buffet line, circling around the table. Jeanie, Maya, and Jessica all used chopsticks. Maya was caught eating in line!


I asked Dan to lift something Thanksgivingy up to his face.


Korrine sharing the gift of Reese's Cups with Rachel.


Korrine's first taste of pumpkin pie, because pies in Australia are savory. I think her reaction was, "Oh, that's okay." I kind of hate pumpkin pie.


Then Maya got into it.


Giffed.


A conversation about leg warmers led to Korrine flash dancing us.


Chocolate peanut butter pie with Amish peanut butter.


And I forgot to take a picture of the Boston Market style sweet potato casserole until this morning. I wanted to show how Korean sweet potatoes are starchier and yellow instead of soft and orange. It made for a heartier version, but you can't go wrong with brown sugar and marshmallows.

So, that has been our most successful overseas American holiday, but actually celebrating (instead of forgetting about it, like the Fourth of July) made home seem a little bit further away.

I think we are going on a winter hike tomorrow. Sounds cold!

-Serenity

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